am i the only believer (there's something happening here)
by capcarter
Summary: Lexa Forrest is better known by her brutal alter-ego: the Commander. Torn apart by the horrors of life and beaten down by the criminals who think they can run her city, Lexa decides it's time to fight back. She's shut everyone out in order to protect them; she lives only to fight another day. But the moment she meets Dr. Clarke Griffin, her entire world changes. [vigilante au]
1. Chapter 1

_The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time._ -Frank Miller

 **Part One**

The minute Lexa hits the pavement she knows she's fucked.

She can feel the bones crunching underneath her weight, hears the sickening pop as her shoulder is forced roughly from its socket, and she would have screamed had she not trained herself enough to push it to the side, compartmentalize it. Instead she just grunts, and thanks whoever is up there looking out for her that she just took a tumble off a goddamn roof, and there's no way Mr. Tall and Brutal is going to jump down afterward to continue the tussle. Lexa's surprised, honestly, because she never expected one of Wallace's numerous lackeys to actually be able to hold their own in a fight, let alone get the upper hand for the split second he needed to kick her right to the ground. Lexa tries to move, but she only ends up with a sensation of piercing agony instead. Great. This is _exactly_ what she needs right now.

She lets her head fall back down against the cool ground below her, and feels blood pooling behind the dark mask that covers her face and conceals her identity, seeping from the littering of cuts that pierced through the fabric of her shirt to the flesh beneath. She should realistically invest in some form of body armor, but with the measly salary she just about manages to live off of, that hardly seemed like a viable option. Not to mention the added weight would more than likely slow her down, make the practiced movements of her body slower and by definition easier for her opponents to counter, to predict her next blow. That, she truly couldn't afford.

She allows herself one more moment of respite before she grits her teeth and hauls herself up off the concrete, feeling bones shifting angrily underneath her skin, grating against one another in a way they were decidedly not meant to do. She manages to hobble forward a bit, the walls of the alleyway she'd landed in providing a source of support, before the pain in her shoulder becomes an issue. She leans heavily against the wall behind her, boots scuffing and pants stretching awkwardly as she slides into a crouch, the tired muscles in her legs trembling with the effort.

She hates how weak she feels.

Clenching her uninjured fist, she puts the pain behind her, screws her eyes shut and pushes off the wall without another thought to the contrary. Lexa's been doing this for a long time-one might argue too long-but she does what she has to, and she tries to pretend that there haven't been such a horrific amount of casualties, a trail of bodies following her every move, the blood of innocents coating her entire body that no amount of showering or cleansing could ever wash away.

Lexa has never been a religious person, but it is times like this, when she feels the heavy weight of her crusade pressing down on her shoulders, her body aching with the effort to hold it all up, that she has flashbacks to her childhood; her mother attempting to soothe the hysterical curls of her flyaway hair with a wet brush, smoothing the edges of a bright sundress Lexa never quite felt comfortable in, ushering her into a pew, telling her the importance of Christ, of his _sacrifice,_ and of all he did for humanity, all he continues to do. (Lexa wonders where He was when she'd _needed_ Him, when she was begging and pleading and He did nothing, He did nothing, all there was was silence and silence and her screams into the dark as she desperately tried to understand the meaning behind this, where the _reason_ for this was. She never found one, not even to this day. She doubts she ever will. It is something she will never forgive Him for). It is times like this that she wishes she had even a modicum of faith, something to grab onto, something to tether her, give her some sense of purpose, something beyond the myopic visage of her crusade. She is human, after all. (Atlas had an advantage; he was a Titan. She does not share that fortune).

She still remembers the day she decided to do this, to do what she'd only ever thought about before. Her father had been a lawyer, her uncle a cop. They believed in the law and the rightness of it, despite everything they saw that could sway them they still held firm in their convictions. That was something Lexa admired. (Her mother had always said she got her stubborn streak from that side of the family, and Lexa found that something she couldn't contradict). But Lexa was not as deluded, no, Lexa was not as naïve. Lexa loved her city, loved her family, but she saw the grimy underbelly that no one else seemed to want to acknowledge. She saw the corruption and the bullying, the dark desires that guided people down the wrong paths, that kept people who didn't deserve it in positions of power, calling the shots. It enraged Lexa, made her doubt that the law was always the right answer, that the law could always solve the problems, if only you gave it a chance to work. She'd been training since she was ten years old for this, mastering the skills she'd need to make those who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of those who couldn't stand up for themselves pay dearly for the sins they commit, all in the name of _progress_ ; some false, dangerous idea that hid behind charismatic men and women who flashed placating smiles and words dipped in honey that all the media and the public ate up, took at face value because they had no desire to see things for how they really were, to see the manipulation behind the masks of kindness and generosity. She remembers the day she'd had enough.

It wasn't easy, in the beginning. It still isn't easy now, but she has a reputation, a _name_. One that people fear; that they run from. Sometimes she barely has to do any punching before her target is mewling on the ground, begging for their life, telling her everything she wants to know. Because they know. They know what she is capable of. (Beatrice Haas found that out the hard way). She is the Commander of this city, and she will never stop until those who seek to take advantage of it have finally been knocked down so many times they will no longer have the strength or the will to get back up. (It may be a goal she dies for, a goal she will never see come to fruition, but she has prepared herself for that. She knows this will not be easy, or simple. She is ready for it, and she will die if she has to. This is all she has now. It is all she is anymore, and she will not stop fighting, not until she takes her last breath).

She has come a long way to this, to a figure who is known throughout the city, a whispered name under the breaths of those who fear her wrath (as they should), a name demonized more times than she can count by the media and by her enemies, but she has never stopped fighting. She is not who she was when she first took to the streets, and she is not surprised by that. She knew she was sacrificing a lot by risking her life, painting a target on her back as the maniac running through the city at night, basking in the shadows and beginning to etch herself into every visible inch of the city in the dark tint of blood, the flurry of fists, the anger building to an overflow inside of her, breaking through the walls she controls her life-by-day with, and scorching with its heat. She knew the things she would have to do, the humanity she would lose. Sometimes she wonders if it was all worth it, if she is even making a difference, if this is just a foolish pipe dream destined to end in blood and death and loneliness. But she does not dwell on thoughts like that, because if she did she might break down, and there are people in this city who count on her to stand up for them, to do what they cannot on their own. _That_ is what pushes her through, every time. _That_ is why she does this. She will never let another person be stomped on by the heel of a person who fancies themselves a God. Too many have suffered already.

She recalls the overexcited boy who helped her develop her outfit (others call it a costume; but she does not see herself the way that they do, some Spider-Man wannabe or whatever else they want to call her, so she does not say costume, because even though it might be a little over the top, its main purpose is to make her stand out). She is no longer the shadowy figure in the dark anymore, and she owes some of it to that boy, whose name she always seems to forget. The mask was all him, and he'd pulled some aspects of her original attire for the job, and she's grateful for it, because every time she dons it, it serves as a reminder of where she began, so she never loses sight of it, never strays so far over the edge that she loses contact with it. It is people like him, with his floppy hair and optimistic outlook that she fights for, that she wants to protect.

(This bout of nostalgia almost makes her want to seek him out again, to thank him properly for what he did for her, and maybe learn his name).

(She shuts that down almost as quickly as the thought flitters through her mind. That is weak of her, and she is ashamed. She has not been weak since…and she has no intention of being weak now. She will not entertain thoughts like that. They have no place, not here. The Commander cannot afford any weakness).

She only wants to make her city better, to make those who seek to ruin it pay for their crimes in the only way she sees fit, the only way they may be forced to face justice, because the law cannot touch people like that, she has come to learn. She does not know what will happen tomorrow, and perhaps that is the life she lives, the path she has chosen. She lives for this city now. She is Lexa Forrest, yes, but she is more the Commander than Lexa nowadays, and she does not like to dwell on what that means, the ramifications that may have on her life and the ripple effect it may no doubt cause. She prefers to feign ignorance. (Sometimes it _is_ bliss, she thinks). The origin of the name the Commander never fails to make her grin, and she might dwell on that again once she handles the sorry state she currently happens to find herself in. She rarely smiles anymore. (Not that she can really blame herself for that, not with everything she deals with on a nightly basis).

(She can barely keep her two lives separate anymore; she was better at it towards the beginning, but she had been young and foolish then. Now, aspects of her alter ego's life bleed into Lexa's own, and what was once a fine line between Lexa Forrest's life and that of the Commander is rapidly blurring. She is learning that the Commander is not simply a mask and an outfit that she can slip into, switch between as she pleases, no, it is a _part_ of her, whether she conceived it that way or not. She can no longer neatly differentiate, and it might be a problem if not for…but that is no more, and Lexa no longer has any meaningful ties to anyone in her life, and that only makes the job easier).

She's not quite sure where she is anymore, only that she's no longer in that alleyway anymore and her vision is starting to blur at the edges, a faint twitch as the pain begins to take its toll. Her head feels clouded, like there's a veil being drawn over it and she tugs her right arm closer to her side, hissing at the pain the movement brings, pinpricks shooting bullets up and down her arm from the point of the break. This is worse than she originally thought when she fell; she knew it wasn't pretty, but now it feels _really_ bad, and she's sagging a little to the side, and her breathing is coming out in short, punctured spurts, and that's when she realizes there's a _deep_ cut running from just underneath her bound breasts, across her left ribcage, ending right at the curve of her hip, and there is blood soaking her top. She reels a little as the swirling and pounding in her head intensifies as she finally acknowledges the extent of her injuries.

She has a strict no hospital rule. She has never once broken it. She's had other rules, of course, but somehow she always manages to screw up and go against her better judgment (it never ends well, either), but this is the one thing she has never once veered away from; she has never once found herself in a hospital for her injuries, even that one time when she was sure she was going to die. She shudders at the memory.

Hospitals are unpredictable, and Lexa hates unpredictability. There is too much at stake for Lexa to risk going to one, especially because she doesn't know what will happen. She prefers to handle things herself, she always has, and what if she passed out at the hospital? The doctors would no doubt be _stupid_ and she couldn't risk them taking her mask off, seeing her face. She can't afford anyone to have seen the person behind the mask; she can't have anyone knowing who she is really. That would put both her and them in unnecessary danger. That's why she avoids hospitals. She doesn't know what could happen. But right now, Lexa thinks she needs one.

She hates herself for caving in, for thinking that she needs someone else to help her, but the reality is that she does. She can't stitch up the cuts with a broken arm, and she can't tend to the arm while she's bleeding like a stuck pig. Something has to give, and it's either possibly her own life, or the rigid adherence to her rules.

She chooses her own life.

She takes a deep breath, and looks upward, trying to orient herself quickly.

She knows every inch of this city like the back of her hand. She knows all the streets, all the buildings, all the roads and all the sewers, where they lead, entrance and exit points, the subway lines, the fastest way to get from point A to point B, every back alley and every shitty warehouse where drugs and contraband are stored before distribution. She could navigate this city even if she was blind, and she needs to be able to do that because of what she does. She couldn't get the upper hand if her enemies knew her home better than she did, so she spent years memorizing city plans and methodically walking her entire city from end to end. She prides herself on it. She has to cool it in real life, however, because she admits it would look a little strange if she could rattle off every subway access point within a four block radius to one of her coworkers who asked. So it only takes her a mere moment to recognize her surroundings, and calculate the best possible way to get to the nearest hospital without attracting attention.

One of her favorite things to do, on crisp fall nights, especially, is to jump from rooftop to rooftop. There is nothing more exhilarating than feeling the wind whipping around her, filling and expanding in her lungs, her body airborne in a perilous leap before her boots hit the ground and she tucks her torso into a roll to soften the landing. The city looks beautiful from high above, and she loves to stand on the ledge of some of the tallest buildings and look out at the smattering of cars and people all over, lights gleaming across the horizon and painting a picture of serene hustle and bustle that quiets the anger and the strain in Lexa's heart, even if only for a moment.

(She remembers someone else who loved the view too; remembers trembling hands clutching onto her hips and breathless laughter in her ear, squeals of delight and terror as Lexa dangled them just a little too close to the edge, the beauty of the expansive city twinkling in the twilight before them paling in comparison to the wonder etched into the brown eyes beside her).

As much as Lexa wants to, she knows she can't travel by rooftop right now, her current state of haze and agony would prevent her from being able to predict her trajectory, let alone allow her to scale a wall to get onto one in the first place. She can barely stand right now, and though it's fast, she'd more than likely end up dead if she tried. So she settles instead for weaving her way to the closest hospital through scattered alleyways and streets barely traveled except for the occasional pedestrian at night.

Lexa barely makes it to her destination, and she can feel her breath coming out in grunts now, and the pain in her shoulder and arm is causing the blurred edges of her field of vision to close up even more. She's starting to wonder if something in her leg is broken too, with the way she's started limping on her trek here.

The hospital looms in front of her now, and the main lights come from the ER and the reception areas through the front doors. It's quite a few stories high, but most of the lights are off, and those she assumes are the offices of doctors and clinicians who were either not on duty this late or had finally given up and went home for a much needed break from their no doubt hectic lives.

Lexa knows she can't climb, not with the way her head is spinning, and she sure as hell can't just stroll in the front door and plop down in the ER. So she settles for an office on the first floor, whose light is still on despite it being almost two thirty in the morning, shimmering through half closed blinds and an open window to let in some of the cooler night air. Lexa tugs her arm tighter to her side, and climbs in over the sill, wincing as the wound across her ribs stretches with the effort, blood dripping onto the carpeted floor as she grits her teeth, steadying her twitching limbs as she sinks into the corner of the room, relishing in the support pressing sturdily against her tired shoulders. She can feel the knots of tension in them.

Lexa takes in the empty office, the door ajar, as if its occupant had only stepped out a moment ago. It smells nice; a warm, comforting vanilla, with a hint of something else that Lexa can't identify. It's neat, but not as neat as Lexa normally likes to keep things. There are food wrappers littering the top of the desk, papers and patient charts strewn around the room, a jacket discarded on a chair by the door, a corkboard on the left wall, pinning up photos and x-rays, various other little notes scribbled next to things on multi-colored post it notes. Lexa notes a name placard on the desk, but the corner she's currently in is behind the desk, and she can't see the name written on it, and she doesn't think it would be very wise to move anymore in her current state. Her aching body protests at the mere thought of moving anywhere.

She cranes her neck slightly to the side, and the desk lamp just about illuminates the various picture frames on edge of the brown desk; backyards and college parties, birthdays and concerts, all featuring nearly the same group of seven individuals in glittering degrees of happiness, smiles adorning their faces in every single one. She is drawn to one picture in particular, set apart from the others, a handsome boy with shaggy dark hair throwing his arm over a blonde girl, her face flushed and happy, looking up at him in awe, laughter in both of their eyes.

There's a sense of comfort Lexa finds in their lives, and she knows none of them outside of these snapshots of moments sitting on a strange doctor's desk, but it is nice to know that somewhere out there, in her city even, there are people who live happy lives, lives untouched by horrors and torment, loss and anger. It is nice that there are people who are not burdened by their lives and can find the time to enjoy it. It makes Lexa feel as if maybe this is worth it. She gets up to fight another day so that there can be people like this who can live in some semblance of happiness, untormented by the machinations of the greedy and powerful of the city.

She feels pain shoot up her arm again, and it distracts her from the tiny prickling in the back of her subconscious that is telling her that the boy with the ski goggles on his head, grinning as he hangs on the back of an Asian boy in one of the photographs, looks eerily familiar.

Lexa's ears pick up the scuffle of shoes against a stairwell at the end of the hallway with ease, and hear them coming closer and closer to the office Lexa's bleeding in. Good.

The woman who enters is the blonde in the photographs on the desk, and Lexa blinks quickly in an attempt to take her in.

Her hair is soft and wavy, tips curling over her shoulders as she slams the door with a huff, face scrunched up in concentration. She looks beyond tired, and the bags under her eyes are only Lexa's most obvious clue. She is hunched, like she's carrying something heavy around on her shoulders (Lexa can relate to that) and the languidness of her strides speaks to a bone deep exhaustion that Lexa sympathizes too much with. She's small, but she takes up space, and she seems a strong presence despite it, like she's taking up Lexa's whole field of vision just by standing still. She runs a hand through her hair, and she's dressed in crisp white sneakers, a lab coat, and wrinkled blue scrubs, and when the woman looks up, Lexa is taken aback by the deep shade of blue her eyes are. They're intense, but they have that same forlorn tiredness she seems to carry around in her gait.

(She doesn't look like that smiling, carefree girl in the pictures now that Lexa's met her).

Lexa emerges from the shadows now, and the blood curdling scream the doctor lets out would have been funny if Lexa didn't feel like her head was splitting open.

"Holy shit!" She yells, hands coming up to cover her heart as she nearly jumps out of her skin, feet propelling her backwards towards the door she'd shut only mere moments previously, "You're…" she trails off, astonished look replacing the shock as she stares wordlessly forward, mouth agape, looking not unlike a fish out of water. She looks like it's the goddamn second coming.

Lexa grunts in response.

"Can you help?" She asks, voice at least an octave or two deeper thanks to the voice changer she always carries with her. She'd never let anyone hear her real voice, lest they accidentally stumble across her out of Commander-mode and know.

The doctor only stares in response, mouth opening and closing a few times like she's desperately trying to find the right words to say but can't. Lexa might find it cute, or funny, or even ego-boosting that she's managed to render a stranger completely speechless with only her mere presence if she wasn't seeing stars across the backs of her eyelids and dripping copious amounts of blood on the floor.

"I'm injured," Lexa clarifies. She thought that was kind of obvious, but the fact that the doctor isn't acknowledging that, or moving to help in any way, has Lexa a little concerned.

"Why me?" The doctor finally asks, shock out of her system as she begins to step forward curiously. She's in better lighting now, and Lexa can see the name stitched in black cursive lettering, standing out against the stark, pristine white of her lab coat: Dr. Clarke Griffin. The woman doesn't look much older than Lexa herself, so she figures she must be looking at some kind of pure bred doctor, considering the youth and the fancy office and the title.

"The light in your office window was on," Lexa replies, nodding to the desk lamp vaguely illuminating her from the shadows, trying to get the doctor to move the hell along and do _something_ about the fact that there's a giant gap in her side, and Lexa's not quite sure how much longer she can keep herself upright before she collapses, or worse, passes out.

"Right," Dr. Griffin breathes, wonder shining in her eyes as she takes another tentative step forward.

(That look in her eyes is making Lexa decidedly uncomfortable and she's not entirely sure why. It's unnerving, and not in a good way).

"So can you help me or not?" Lexa prompts when the doctor continues to stare, shuffling her aching body forward, a grimace sliding its way across her lips.

Dr. Griffin jerks as if she's coming out of a daze.

"Yes, of course, sorry," she says, a pretty red flush creeping up into her cheeks as she springs into action, "come sit." Lexa hesitates for a brief moment, wondering yet again if this is really worth it. She could just leave, back out the window she came from and attempt to stitch herself up _before_ she bleeds out in some alley and then ram her shoulder up against the wall of her shitty apartment (maybe it'll be loud enough to wake up her stupid neighbor who likes to have shouting matches with his sister about her behavior and her boyfriend at three A.M. almost daily) to pop it back into place, but she can feel the rough edge of displaced bone grating against other parts of her elbow, and she knows it's broken. She's dealt with plenty of dislocated shoulders before, but the broken arm is definitely going to put her out of commission for a while, not to mention many of the cuts littering her torso will more than likely need stitches, which will only serve to restrict her movements even more, and she'll have to be extra careful if (when) she hits the streets again before she's completely healed.

(She shudders to think of the things the people in this city will get away with when she isn't there to stop it).

She wasn't on top of things tonight; she let herself get too distracted, her carefully crafted focus breaking for just a moment too long, and it cost her. She'll have to live with the consequences.

Instead of running, she obliges instead, head pointed down at the ground (out of habit from her pre-mask days when she ran around with paint smeared over her eyes and a hood hanging over her forehead which reminded her too much of that idiotic superhero from the comic books and that show she'd tried to watch a few years ago when it aired but couldn't-Oliver Queen-and she'd never been much of a Green Arrow fan) as she lowers herself into the chair the doctor had pulled out for her.

Dr. Griffin crouches down next to her, and Lexa groans with the effort it takes to fold her body into a sitting position. She feels the soreness of her muscles, the tension knotted all over her body, the pain, and perhaps most acutely the fatigue washing over her all in the quick moment it takes to rest against the back of the chair. Lexa tries to ignore the way Dr. Griffin smells; that strange mixture of vanilla and _something_ that had tinted the air of the office and intrigued Lexa from the moment she'd stepped into it, mixed with sweat and a sort of crispness that Lexa usually only equates to autumn evenings.

Dr. Griffin hovers around her, poking and prodding, gauging the extend of her various injuries with a frown, her face scrunching up in concentration, the lines creasing her forehead accentuated by the downward quirk of her lips. She gasps when she comes to the gash over her ribcage, fingers reaching out to touch in a concerned, almost reverent way, before she retracts them quickly, without ever actually making contact, fingers curling into a fist instead.

(Lexa's eyes follow her every move).

"My God," she says, "What did you do?" She pulls herself up from her crouch and rummages around in the desk behind Lexa, beginning to pull out supplies and kits. At least she's prepared; all this stuff in her personal office already. Lexa doesn't answer her question. She supposes it was rhetorical anyway, more of a question for the doctor herself than Lexa. She's surprised, however, when she looks back up and finds Dr. Griffin looking at her expectantly as she lays out a medical kit on the ground next to Lexa's chair.

Lexa's not used to people asking her questions and actually expecting answers, especially not about things like this, _especially_ when she is the Commander. As the Commander, she asks the questions, and God help the person who chooses not to answer. No one ever _asks_ _her_ things, and she's taken aback by the forwardness of the doctor, and how unafraid she is. She's not shaking in a corner, eyeing her warily, wondering what she could potentially do, looking at her like she's something volatile liable to explode at any moment given the right provocation. No, she's fierce eyed and determined, and there's not a hint of fear in any of her movements.

Lexa's never met someone who isn't afraid of her.

It's refreshing in the best way possible, something she didn't even know she wanted until it was presented to her.

Lexa actually contemplates answering the question, before the doctor speaks to fill the awkward void of silence between them.

"Okay never mind," she says, another warm flush creeping up the side of her neck as she fiddles with the edge of a needle, "you're a hardcore vigilante you'd never actually tell me what you were doing. Gotta keep up the air of mystery, right?" Lexa feels a flicker of a smile beginning to form. She can't decide if she finds the rambling endearing or annoying. (For the sake of her sanity she settles with the latter).

Dr. Griffin threads the needle between her fingers and sets it to the side, ears still a bright red.

"I need you to hold still, okay? I'm gonna clean this wound." Lexa nods, and only grits her teeth as the doctor takes a water bottle and wets a strip of cloth, pressing it gently but firmly to the bleeding and torn flesh over her ribcage.

"Sorry," she mutters, dragging the cloth as quickly as she can over the cut, and Lexa can feel her head swimming with pain.

She doesn't make a sound.

(She's been through much worse).

Lexa barely realizes that the doctor is now pressing a firm hand against her chest, holding her back as she begins to thread the needle through her skin. Lexa closes her eyes in exhaustion, letting her head fall back against the back of the chair as she lets the doctor continue her work. Some part of Lexa realizes that she should in fact be in pain right now, but this pain is a nice distraction from the pain from before, and she's dealt with worse. A little needle is nothing to her anymore, even if it is stitching quite a large and expansive cut on her abdomen closed.

"Almost done," the doctor says reassuringly, and Lexa gives a brief nod in acknowledgment. She feels the needle pulling through the final end of the cut, and she sighs as Dr. Griffin runs the washcloth over her skin again, cleaning off some excess blood, before she prods her stitching job a few times, satisfied with the hold.

"Take your shirt off," the doctor demands, and Lexa lifts her head up off the chair to stare, one of her eyebrows rising in response. Forward, indeed. She starts to blush under Lexa's gaze, and drops her eyes to the floor as she realizes exactly what she said.

"I didn't mean…" she trails off, ears a bright red again, and Lexa finds she likes it when the doctor is all flustered, "I just meant so I could get better access to some of your other cuts." Lexa smiles slightly before tugging her tattered shirt up and over her head, leaving her torso exposed to the cool air filtering in from the open window. Lexa glances down, and takes note of the rather ugly stitching of her rather ugly cut, and resigns herself to adding that to her growing list of scars.

(Lexa doesn't miss the way Dr. Griffin's eyes roam over the muscles in her chest; lingering on well-defined abs and the curve of her biceps).

She clears her throat, sterilizing another needle before getting to work, and this time Lexa observes her concentration and the way her blonde head bobs as she works.

These take a decidedly less amount of time, and the doctor is throwing out various needles before she knows it, taking another wet piece of cloth and beginning to swab it over the newly stitched cuts, cleaning as best as she can. Her fingers dance over Lexa's skin, a barely there touch, and Lexa can't help the fact that she _feels_ them, every time they brush her flesh. Her fingers stall over the bicep of her injured arm, and Lexa watches as Dr. Griffin fingers the intricate tattoo there.

"Wow," she breathes, running the pad of her thumb over the design, "This is so beautiful." The way she says that, so softly and full of meaning, almost makes Lexa forget that she's now seen something that could be a potential identifying feature out in the real world.

Almost.

Lexa jerks away like the doctor's fingers burn, and Lexa tries not to be affected by the hurt look that passes quickly over the blonde's face before it's replaced with a tinge of anger. She backs away now, standing up and brushing her hands over the front of her scrubs, heading for the door.

"Don't move, okay, I'm going to get some material to make you a cast for that arm," she says, and Lexa doesn't miss the colder tone of her voice as she walks from the room.

Not that she cares.

She doesn't.

The feelings of some random doctor she'll never see again once this is over don't concern her. She needs to get fixed up, and this doctor is merely a means to an end. She doesn't care if her feelings are hurt. She doesn't care _at all._ Not about anything and certainly not about this.

Dr. Griffin comes back with what she needs before offering her hand to Lexa.

"Gotta get you an X-Ray so I can determine how to set the break," she says, and Lexa sighs before grabbing the proffered hand, hoisting herself up and allowing the doctor to hold onto her with one hand while the other comes to rest on the small of her back.

(Lexa is acutely aware of the fact that she is still _shirtless_ and the doctor's hand is soft and warm).

Lexa stiffens at the contact. She almost jerks away again because how long has it actually been since someone's touched her without ill intent?

"Sorry," she mutters, quickly removing her hand.

"S'okay, Doctor Griffin," Lexa grunts, and she sees Dr. Griffin smile out of the corner of her eye before she feels her hand return to her back as they begin to maneuver down the hallway.

"Clarke," the doctor says after a stretch of silence. Lexa looks sideways at her questioningly, noting the soft smile gracing her features.

"You can call me Clarke."

"Clarke it is then." Lexa replies, testing out the name. She likes it.

"Don't suppose I get to know yours, do I?" Clarke pries, a hint of something almost playful in her tone as she directs Lexa towards a darkened room, flipping on the lights as they walk through. Lexa is shocked, by the way Clarke is just… _talking_ to her. As if she isn't a battered, shirtless, bloodthirsty vigilante with most of her outfit still on her person. Like she's a real person.

Lexa doesn't talk to many people anymore, apart from some coworkers when she absolutely has to, and the tall, nice guy who frequents her boxing gym and sometimes asks to spar with her. (She always wins).

She's always been more of a loner, even when she was younger she never had many friends, and taking up the role of the Commander has only isolated her more from other people; given her an excuse to always keep people at arm's length, or, preferably, even further away, which is fine by her. People don't really seem to want to know her anyway, outside of her overall reluctance for any kind of relational intimacy. Except, apparently, for Clarke, who is asking for her name, something she must know she can't possibly give her, but she asks anyway. Lexa doesn't understand this woman, who seems like a muddled mass of contradictions in human skin, an enigma and a puzzle, waiting to be solved. Lexa is intrigued, that she cannot deny (though she tries).

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Clarke says to her silence after adjusting Lexa under the X-Ray machine, throwing a lead covering over her torso and telling her to stay put, leaving the room. Lexa hears the whir of the machine, and suddenly desperately wants to be out of here. She needs to get out of here, and go home, crawl under into her bed and sleep off the night's shit and forget about nearly everything that's happened to her in the last twenty four hours.

Clarke comes back momentarily, helping her up and taking her back down the hallway to her office. Lexa revels in the silence between them, and watches their shadows play on the walls as they walk, illuminated from the sparse overhead lights in the hallway and the moon casting its luminance over them through the windows.

"Those should be ready in a little while," Clarke comments, once again attempting to fill the space between them with idle conversation. That's something Lexa never understood. If there wasn't something to say, why go out of your way to say anything at all? That only made it more uncomfortable for everyone involved, and Lexa was fond of the quiet herself. But not Clarke. Clarke seemed outgoing by nature, incapable of _not_ talking when she felt there needed to be something said (which apparently applied to every stretch or lull of silence that happened to dangle between them).

"Do you want me to snag you some scrubs to wear?" Clarke asks once she's sitting in a chair again, arm still cradled against her side, the doctor nodding to both her topless state and the rather ratty and frayed shirt on the ground next to the medical kit. Lexa nods.

"Okay," Clarke says, jumping to her feet again, "I'll run to my locker and see if I have another top in there and if not I'll just steal some from someone else, they won't miss it. And I'll check on your X-Rays on the way back and then hopefully we can set that arm of yours and send you on your way." Lexa doesn't respond, and Clarke takes that as her cue to leave, and Lexa listens to her go, feet clacking against linoleum floors as she rounds a corner and begins to climb a flight of stairs.

Lexa sighs. This was taking longer than she expected, and she can feel sleep tugging at her eyelids, begging her to close her eyes and give herself over to the bliss of unconsciousness. She's had a rough day, a rough week, a rough month, a rough _everything_ and maybe being injured is exactly what Lexa needs. She needs to stop her breakneck pace, even if only for a little while; just slow down and take a few well deserved moments to _breathe_. She is one woman, attempting to carry the weight of two lives, one that requires her to be in top physical shape, around with her. She sometimes feels like it's too much; too much for one person to handle.

(That is weak, and she should feel ashamed for even allowing the thought to cross her mind. There is no one else to do this. She is all there is, and this is her calling, her crusade, the path of life she chose to walk down. It does her no good to regret that now; to cower or back down. That is weak. She will eradicate weakness).

Lexa sits in silence, attempting to quiet the hurried thoughts of her mind, giving in and closing her eyes behind her mask, sweat and blood a strong scent surrounding her. It was comforting. Lexa, unlike many other people, never felt horribly disgusted or like she needed to immediately get into a shower after a workout or a run; she quite enjoys the smell of sweat and hard work. It reminds her that she is alive, that she is doing something and pushing her body, and she always associated the scent with her uncle; scooping her up in his arms as a five year old, smelling of his worn leather jacket, sweat and metal after a long day at work.

Clarke finally returns after an indeterminate amount of time. Lexa had stopped paying attention to how long she'd been gone for right about when she closed her eyes. Clarke smiles briefly, handing her a dark green scrub top, which Lexa barely manages to get her arm through, while she turns on the light box hanging next to the corkboard on the left wall and slides Lexa's X-Rays into the top, checking them one last time before turning to her.

"It's definitely broken," Clarke says, eyes softening with sympathy, "but it could've been worse. You have what's called an Olecranon fracture." Lexa has absolutely no idea what Clarke is saying. She hasn't stepped foot in a biology class since she was a senior in high school, in what seems like a different lifetime all together.

"Basically what happened is, and I'm assuming you fell on it," Clarke elaborates, pressing forward and crouching down next to her chair, fingers reaching out to brush softly over the injured elbow in question, pointing to the tip, "is that this tip, called the olecranon, is relatively unprotected, and when you fell on it, it broke easily from the impact. The most common type of this fracture usually requires surgery, but your fracture looks like a type I, so all you'll need is a cast and a sling. You can move your hand, maybe squeeze a stress ball or something every day, and you might need physical therapy afterwards, just to get your range of motion back. You should have the cast for at least a month, though."

Lexa sighs. It's better than she expected it would be, and at least she doesn't need surgery. She can live with the rest of it.

"Alright." Clarke looks like she expects her to say something else; to react in some way besides her noncommittal agreement, but Clarke doesn't know her. Lexa prefers not to use words whenever possible, and she really wants to get out of here. She hates hospitals, and she wants to go home. When she says nothing, Clarke just sets about setting her arm, wrapping it in gauze and starting on her cast.

Lexa allows her mind to wander while the woman works again.

"All done," Clarke murmurs after what seems like forever, fiddling with a gray sling for a moment before slipping it over the material of the cast and helping Lexa's head through it, palms grazing the edges of her mask.

"You're all set," Clarke says, stepping back to let Lexa haul herself rather ungracefully up from the chair that has become her best friend over the last few hours.

"Thank you, Clarke," she says, and she hopes Clarke knows she truly means it. The doctor shoots her a bright but tired smile in return.

"You're very welcome." Lexa nods in return, before slowly making her way back towards the window, picking up the tattered remains of her old shirt as she goes, noting with a hint of guilt the bloodstains in pools all over the carpet. Her foot barely manages to touch the sill before she hears Clarke call out to her.

"Wait!" Lexa freezes, turning back around warily. She takes in the flushed appearance of Clarke's face and the way she's worrying her lip between her teeth. Lexa raises an eyebrow that Clarke can't see.

"I just wanted to say that I know you do a rather thankless job, you know, running around protecting people without letting anyone know who you really are," Clarke spits out, crossing the room to stand closer to her, hand reaching tentatively out, almost as if she is about to touch her shoulder or her wrist, and Lexa almost flinches away from the contact but it never comes. Clarke instead thinks better of the gesture and chooses instead to retract her hand, fingers closing into a fist, reminiscent of the way she'd pulled her fingers away when she'd been examining her cuts before.

"I want you to know that there are people out there who appreciate everything you do." Lexa is almost physically propelled backwards by the force of the kindness of these words. She truly doesn't know what to say in response, and all she can see is Clarke's small smile and her blue eyes, and Lexa wasn't aware that there could still be selfless people in the world. (Maybe she's getting a little too cynical, but who would blame her?). There's a strange sensation in her stomach and a prickling of what _might_ be tears in her eyes, and she is suddenly so overwhelmed by the emotion she keeps so carefully bottled up all the time, she can't breathe. She needs to leave. Now. She can't be here anymore.

Lexa nods curtly before turning swiftly on her heel, trying to stop her heart from racing and trying to ignore the look on Clarke's face she gets a quick look at before she hops up onto the window sill and shoves her body out onto the street a few inches below her feet. She lands sturdily, and she fights a feeling of nausea before pushing forward.

She doesn't look back.

She decides to break into her boxing gym to grab the duffle bag she always keeps inside her locker in case of emergencies. She normally just scales the side of her apartment complex in her outfit, slipping into her apartment through the window and undressing once she gets inside. Tonight, however, with her broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and various stitches, she thinks she should just walk in the front door and take the questionable elevator up to her floor. She strips off the rest of her outfit and changes into the jeans and sweatshirt she keeps in the duffle, shoving her mask, pants and boots into the bag, zipping it up before tugging her hair out of its disheveled braid and letting it hang in loose curls around the side of her head. She'll have to figure out what she's going to do with her hair tomorrow, because she hates wearing it down, but she can't exactly braid it or tie it up with only one working arm.

She heaves a sigh before shutting up her locker, hurrying to the nearest subway stop to get to her destination with as minimal walking as she can possibly come up with. She has no desire to walk anymore, and she just wants to sleep.

Upon arriving to her building, she nods at Ethel behind the counter, who looks like she'd just woken up herself. Ethel scowls in return. Lexa doesn't take it personally. Ethel hates everyone.

Lexa doesn't think there's been a day in the recent past when she'd felt so thrilled to be back home. She tosses her bag to the side and locks up her door, not bothering to turn the lights on or change into her pajamas; she just collapses on top of her bed, eyes closing almost as soon as her head hits the pillow. She can feel the exhaustion rapidly pulling her into its embrace, and she can feel sleep coming on quickly. She's never needed it more than she does right now.

(She definitely doesn't dream about Clarke).

* * *

A/N: feel free to come shoot me a message on tumblr (cap-carter dot tumblr dot com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

Clarke questions the validity of her sanity nearly every Wednesday morning at six thirty sharp.

Today is no different.

She'd covered for Jackson in the ER last night when he'd begged her with his ridiculous puppy dog eyes that he had something important to do and that so-and-so would never forgive him if he wasn't there. She likes Jackson (unlike some other people she works with -she doesn't want to let herself think about Dr. Rainer because that man is like hell personified; a short man with a shiny bald head who has an ego the size of Russia and a personality like a dead fish- who are decidedly less than amiable) which is why she'd agreed to cover his shift. Unfortunately for her, that meant she was stuck in the ER almost all night, but a noteworthy highlight was a sixteen year old boy who came stumbling in around one AM, crying and complaining that there was lint inside his belly button. Clarke doesn't think she's ever seen one of the nurses-Maya-laugh so hard.

Clarke isn't a fan of the rapid fire, quick on your feet chaos that's typical down in the ER. She prefers consulting with patients, other doctors, maybe even sitting in on some surgeries if she has the free time. She prefers when things aren't always moving so fast.

She used to, though.

Used to need everything to fly by and rush around, she used to be driven and throbbing with energy that threatened to burst from almost every fiber of her being. She used to love the ER because it fed the thrill seeker she liked to pretend she wasn't, but those that really knew her could attest to her love for living a little on the dangerous side; the fact that she was always attracted to things she shouldn't be, drawn to mystery and discovery. Now she can barely even recall that girl she used to be, a mere memory of something that no longer exists. She thinks that person was someone different entirely. Clarke isn't like that anymore; chaos exhausts her. She thinks _he_ probably had something to do with zapping that energy out of her. Stripping away part of who she inherently _was,_ taking it from her as if he had some right to utterly change her life, twist and turn until she was no longer recognizable, bent out of shape and hollowed out.

But the past is the past, and she hates to dwell on things she cannot change. It only serves to make her upset, fuel her despair and regret; make her wish there was some way to go back in time and change the outcome of so many things, to change the way that things happened, to tell herself what would happen with the choices she made so maybe she'd make different ones the second time around, so that maybe this time she wouldn't be left with a hole in her chest and the never ending feeling that something is _missing._ The fact that she can't only seems to make it worse.

Her cell phone beeps from her bedside table, jolting Clarke out of her unwitting trip down memory lane. She fumbles out from underneath her covers, eyes bleary with sleep as she pulls her phone towards her, squinting at the screen against the dark of her bedroom. She sees her mother's name, iMessage written underneath it, instead of a preview (Clarke turned that off after one too many of her friends saw things they shouldn't have), and _slide to unlock_ blinking at her from the edge of her phone's screen. She mentally debates whether or not she should open it, before she decides that she's up, so she might as well see what Abby has to say, especially if she's contacting her this early.

Mom

iMessage

October 7, 2015, 6:25 AM

Hi, honey, I know I said that I would be able to come up this

weekend for your presentation but I have to take an extra shift

at the hospital to cover for someone. I love you! Have a good day.

Clarke stares unbelieving at the message in front of her, and she honestly can't believe her mother is doing this again. Not to say that Clarke wouldn't have expected this; Abby's not exactly the person who's always around, and she's notorious for being flaky, especially when it comes to things that are important to Clarke. (That's probably why some of her friends _hate_ her mother with unmatched vitriol). Clarke, on the other hand, could never hate her mother, because despite everything else she _is_ her mother, and she tries, and she loves her, sure, but Clarke's never quite forgiven her for pulling away when she'd needed her the most. After that, their relationship has been tenuous at best, and Abby had never tried to make up for (in Clarke's eyes) abandoning her in that time of need, instead only estranging herself more but pretending that they still have the loving relationship they used to when Clarke was younger. The fact that Abby won't acknowledge her mistakes and prefers to think that everything has and will always been okay between them only makes Clarke wish she _could_ hate her. It would save her a lot of heartache and even more disappointment.

Clarke's been reminding her mother about this upcoming presentation of some of her research for months now, and maybe that's what bothers her most about all of this; that Abby _promised_ she'd clear her schedule and book a flight and be here for something that Clarke has been preparing for, that her and her research partner Derek have worked so incredibly hard on, and are finally getting to present their work in front of a wide group of esteemed physicians and clinicians. And now Abby was letting her down again. She couldn't get someone else to cover instead? How hard would that have been?

Clarke shakes her head and tries to suppress the tears. She should stop hoping she'll show up. She only proves time and time again that she won't.

Clarke still feels the sting of the first time she'd been let down by her mother, way back in high school, when she'd been given an entire section at the annual art exhibition to display and talk about some of the inspiration behind her pieces, and she remembers the punch to her gut when she'd searched the crowds for hours, and not even once did she find her mother's smiling, reassuring face amongst the onlookers. Clarke will never forget that.

Clarke locks her phone before tossing it back onto the table resting against the wall, falling back onto her pillows, bunching her fists in the fabric of her sheets. She'll get over it, she always does. But that doesn't really make it any better.

Clarke finally remembers why she was woken up in the first place when Raven begins banging on the bathroom door again-well, pounding is probably a more adequate term to describe the racket-and she's shouting at a volume that definitely should not be permitted at the crack of dawn, especially when Clarke has barely been asleep for two hours and needs to be up within the next three. Clarke curses herself for being nice to Jackson on a Tuesday night, of all days.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Octavia! Get out of the fucking bathroom or I swear to God I'm going to knock down this door and drag you out!"

"Shut the fuck up Raven!" Octavia's harsh voice shouts back in return, muffled by the running of the faucet, "I need to get ready!"

"You've been getting ready since five thirty! I swear we need another bathroom because I'm about to go knock on creepy Phil's door and ask to use his shower!" Raven huffs, fist still slamming against the wood of the bathroom door, and Clarke can't believe they have to go through the same conversation every single week. It almost makes living with her two best friends unbearable. She might consider trying to find her own place if she didn't love them both so much, despite their almost constant squabbling.

"Go ahead!" Octavia yells back, and Clarke can physically hear Octavia sticking her tongue out and cocking her hips to the side in her patented sass pose.

"Octavia! Get out of the bathroom! Now!"

"Fuck you!"

"I'm not kidding, Octavia! You know I have places to be!"

Wednesdays are Raven's busy day, which is why it is beyond Clarke that she and Octavia have to have the same fight every week when both of them know Raven needs the bathroom. (Clarke kind of thinks Octavia only does it anymore to get under Raven's skin).

Raven majored in engineering in college, although she prefers the term 'mechanic,' something about "those fucking engineers who think they own the whole damn world don't lump me with them, Clarke" and various other curse laden sentiments both her and Octavia have only heard over and over again all throughout their rather long friendship with Raven. Sometimes, if she gets angry enough, she'll start yelling insults in Spanish, and then forget it; no one can reign in Raven after she crosses that line. Clarke took Spanish in high school, so she knows enough to have a rudimentary conversation with someone if she absolutely had to, but the only words Octavia even knows in Spanish are insults, and Clarke has to admit it's rather entertaining to watch Raven go off on someone in her native language with Octavia hollering random words as back up.

Raven works three jobs, which Clarke finds strange, because Raven's the closest thing to a genius Clarke's ever come across, her mind whirring and connecting far beyond what Clarke's is capable of, or at least with regards to math and the like, and her stellar academic record should be more than enough to land her a well paying, high quality job somewhere no doubt prestigious, but Clarke guesses it has more to do with the fact that it's the kind of work Raven actually _likes_ to do; she likes to work with her hands and on cars and get grease all over her skin and complain about it later, she'd rather work a million jobs than be stuck in some stuffy office with people she can't stand. Clarke admires her because she has the guts to be unapologetically herself; no matter what anyone else says she'll bend to no one's will but her own. Raven Reyes doesn't let anyone tell her what she can or can't do and Clarke loves her all the more for being able to show that strength and say 'fuck you' to anyone who has a problem with it. (Clarke wishes she had even half of that strength and determination).

Clarke met both Raven and Octavia in her freshman year of college; Octavia was her randomly assigned roommate and Raven was the loud obnoxious girl in their intro to psych class, and well, one could say the rest was history. She and Octavia became rather fast friends, their two personalities fitting together extremely well (Clarke thanked God that they did and weren't awkward and dismissive or openly hostile with each other), and Raven was one of the only people who'd showed up to one of Clarke's study groups for class, and despite butting heads at first, they all became rather inseparable. Clarke's grateful that college gave her lifelong friends who have always been by her side when she needed them (unlike her mother).

Their friend group only expanded after that, first to include Octavia's older brother Bellamy who Clarke met for the first time when they were sophomores; Octavia loved him so much even though she was sometimes embarrassed by his so-called "nerdiness" or his overprotective streak, but anything she could find to complain about was only borne out of his incredible love for her, and Clarke couldn't believe she'd kept him hidden from both her and Raven for so long. (Clarke longed for a relationship like the one that they shared; they were best friends, siblings, and it was clear they'd do almost anything for each other. Clarke only learns later the tragic reason they are the way they are: so close and so dependent on each other and she almost regrets wishing for it in the first place).

After Bellamy came Jasper and Monty, and Clarke found a quiet companion in the latter and a boisterous joker in the former. They were long time friends, brought into their band of four through Octavia's brief stint working in the library's café. (Jasper and Monty were part of the work study group on campus; Octavia needed the extra income but found it almost impossible to juggle her school work and the hours required plus finding time to party, hence the briefness of it all, but Jasper and Monty at least became a permanent fixture in their lives; Raven took the most to Jasper, although that's probably something she'd never willingly admit, except maybe as a consolation to lessen the sting of beating his ass in Call of Duty literally every single time they play).

Finn came last.

Clarke doesn't really remember a time in her life where happiness didn't go hand in hand with those six people: Octavia, Raven, Bellamy, Jasper, Monty, Finn. When Clarke had nothing else, she _always_ had them; a second family. When things got screwed up with money and flight schedules and she had to forgo Christmas at home one year, they all cancelled their plans and spent the holidays holed up at school with her.

(That was one of the best holidays she can ever remember, besides ones when she was very little; Bellamy bought a tiny, shitty, fake tree from Walmart that he and Octavia strung some lights on while Raven and Jasper cleared out space in the suite's common room for presents and board games; Monty draped the unused lights all around the room, from the ceiling and over the television and everywhere in between. Finn made cookies in the kitchen on the first floor, burning more than half of them but Clarke managed to salvage enough to keep Octavia smiling, and amidst laughter and alcohol courtesy of Bellamy, they all fumbled their way through several rounds of Clue, accompanied by a Yule log on their television screen and a view of stark white snow falling ever so softly outside their window as they all exchanged cheap laughter inducing gifts, and a silly bobble head of Clarke's favorite baseball player from Bellamy and an origami deer from Finn was worth a hundred times more than a Hallmark card from her mother wishing her well could ever be worth. It was here that Clarke found herself with one of the happiest memories she has to date; their celebration was silly and maybe a little bit sophomoric but it was beautiful, and Clarke was in love, and nothing else really mattered outside of that).

When she needed to be cheered up they were there, when studying for midterms and finals became overwhelming they were there to commiserate with, when it was hot out but everyone needed a break from homework they went to the kickball fields behind one of the dining halls and played watered down versions of soccer and ultimate Frisbee and exhausted themselves into a laughing pile of bodies before they raced each other to the swimming pool to cool down. Clarke doesn't think she could have made it this far without her friends, and their circle has expanded and contracted, sure, but Clarke likes to think that at heart they've always stayed the same. She's forever grateful for their presence in her life (even if sometimes they're the cause of her pain).

Raven's still pounding on the bathroom door and that's when Clarke decides she's going to have to mediate because with the way they're fighting out there, it's pretty clear that this time they aren't going to resolve it themselves. It seems Octavia has decided that today she's going to be a stubborn ass and not give in to Raven's demands as per usual, so Clarke throws her hands up in frustration, fingers curling through the tangles in her blonde hair before she swings her legs over the side of her bed and flings the door open.

"Okay, stop, both of you!" She shouts as she enters into the hallway, and Raven pauses to look at her, fist caught in mid-swing.

"Jesus you look like shit."

Clarke wrinkles her nose, "Wow, thanks, you really know how to flatter a girl." Raven's lips quirk up into a smirk.

"Can you get dumbass here out of the bathroom?" Raven shouts pointedly, jerking her thumb in the direction of the door as she turns to stare at Clarke, "Rough day?" she asks, volume lowering as she takes in the tangled mess of Clarke's hair and the bags underneath her eyes, sleep still crusted in the corners.

Clarke shrugs. "No more than usual." She pushes Raven away from the door with her hips.

"O, you have to get out, okay? I'm not kidding Raven's seriously pissed," Clarke tries, tiredness seeping through her words and coating their inflection; instead of the forceful anger she was going for she ends up just sounding defeated, and she's so exhausted she doesn't even care.

Octavia must get the hint, because within the next three minutes the door clicks open and steam follows her exit. She doesn't forget to shoot Raven a menacing glare before she slams her bedroom door closed behind her.

"God, you're a lifesaver, Clarke, thanks," Raven grins out, pumping her fist in the air triumphantly before she disappears into the bathroom, door squeaking shut behind her, and Clarke hears the shower turn on before she turns around and makes her way into the kitchen, collapsing against the counter. She rubs her fingertips over her eyes, sighing. She can already tell it's going to be a long day and she's barely been awake for fifteen minutes. She really wishes she hadn't covered for Jackson last night because now she's not sure she's going to be able to get through the rest of the day with her eyes open. She wants to go back to sleep even if only for two or three more hours, but she's awake now, and that's one of those pesky little things she hates about herself: once she's awake she can never get back to sleep.

Keys jingle in the lock on their apartment door, and Clarke lifts her head from the countertop, her bleary eyes met with the overly cheerful grin of Bellamy Blake, his mop of black hair in its typical messy tousle on top of his head, bangs falling softly into his warm eyes as he brandishes what looks like a tray of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a greasy bag of McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. He looks crisp and clean, as he usually does, in his dark police officer uniform, and Clarke never tires of hearing Raven tease him about looking more cute than threatening in it. (She tends to agree).

He's been a beat cop for what seems like forever to Clarke, and he complains of never seeing any action anymore because of their resident vigilante, but Clarke is more than happy to have him a little bit safer, even if she has to hear him grumble about it all the time. Despite the fact that he's been a beat cop for so long, Clarke has no doubt that a fancy promotion is on its way to him, because if anyone is dedicated to their job it's Bellamy; he is one of the best cops in the city and she has no doubt that he'll make just as exceptional a detective.

He stalks over to her, shutting the door behind him and dropping his keys on the table by the door, kissing her on the cheek as he deposits his goods on the counter in front of them.

"Hey, Bell," she smiles back at him.

"How're you doing? You look tired." She rolls her eyes.

"Your sister and Raven had their usual Wednesday fight and I had to break it up. Oh and I was in the ER almost all night. I've barely gotten any sleep." Bellamy shakes his head, shifting his hips to lean against the edge of the counter as he speaks.

"I'll talk to her about that."

"You don't have to, Bellamy."

"I _am_ a cop. I could threaten to arrest her," he says, impish grin adorning his features, highlighting the smattering of freckles on his cheeks. She lets out a barking laugh at the suggestion. She can only imagine Bellamy forcing his sister to spend a night in jail, and every scenario she runs through in her head is enough to lighten her mood considerably.

"Who're you arresting?" Octavia asks as she slides into the kitchen in her stocking feet, stopping her beeline for the fridge only to give her brother a kiss before she continues on, pulling an apple out of the bottom drawer before searching the coffee tray for her marked off cup, reclining into a chair at the kitchen table in one fluid motion.

"You, for causing Clarke so many problems in the morning," Bellamy half scolds, playful teasing still evident in his voice despite the seriousness of his expression.

Octavia groans around the crunch of her apple.

"Not this again, Bell, it's Raven, not me." Bellamy can't help his laughter this time.

"Sis, we all know it's you." She scowls at him, and Clarke snorts along with Bellamy's full, booming laugh.

It's one of her favorite sounds; hearing Bellamy's deep, rich laughter filling her senses, echoing throughout every inch of whatever place they happened to be occupying, fills her with a sense of contentment that he alone can bring her. Maybe it's because Bellamy's infectious laughter was always there when she found it impossible to laugh herself, and he always made her feel like it was okay to be happy, to let loose, to be free, even if only for that fleeting moment. (When things get rough, she grabs a hold of that sentiment and never lets it go).

"Fuck you," Octavia replies, leaning up to snatch the McDonald's bag before sticking her tongue out at her brother and flipping Clarke off.

Raven exits the bathroom just as Octavia sits down again, towel wrapped around her dripping form as she limps (more like hobbles) into the kitchen, grinning at Bellamy.

"Good morning Officer Cutie," she says, mock saluting him as she leans against the wall for support, her leg resting at an awkward angle.

The tips of Bellamy's ears burn red.

"You need your brace?" He asks, clearing his throat as he shrugs the embarrassment off, barely meeting Raven's mischievous eyes.

(Clarke's never really asked, but sometimes she wonders if there's something between them; something else happening that they haven't decided to make anyone else privy to. Sometimes she thinks she sees something brewing between them, and she thinks it's been brewing for a while: there are lingering glances, concerned questions, a little too many touches that could be misconstrued as more than friendly, and a flirty banter that yes, Raven shares with practically everyone, but with Bellamy it somehow always seems to have more weight. Whether or not they've ever actually acted on any feelings they may or may not share, Clarke doesn't know).

"Yeah, you mind?" Raven asks, hand running absently over her bad leg as she drips water onto the floor.

The accident had happened three years prior, and Clarke was still surprised that Raven could have so much strength to get passed the damage it inflicted upon her. It had been a rather late night and Raven was driving back home from the store, picking up a few things for a party they were going to throw Monty over the weekend, when a truck drove through a red light at an intersection and slammed right into Raven's car.

Clarke still remembers getting the call; how she and Octavia broke down. The doctors weren't sure if Raven was going to make it; her car certainly hadn't. It was totaled in the accident, crumpled into a barely recognizable mass of rubber and metal. Clarke wonders how Raven even made it out of that car alive. She's just grateful she did.

Raven spent seven hours in surgery. According to her surgeon, she'd coded three times during the operation, but they'd managed to bring her back with relative ease every single time. "She's a fighter, that one," he'd said, clapping Clarke on the shoulder as he delivered the news, and Clarke replied through her tears of relief that there was no better way to describe Raven Reyes.

The only catch was that she might never walk again.

It was too soon to tell exactly how much damage had been done to her spine, and only in a few weeks after the swelling and inflammation had gone down and they could get a more accurate picture would they know for sure what the long term prognosis would be. Raven would end up only being partially paralyzed, and with ongoing physical therapy, crutches, walking sticks, and specialized knee and shin braces, she might be able to regain enough of her movement to one day walk without the assistance of a crutch.

Raven was determined to say the least, and she never let the injury break her. She only squared her jaw and made Clarke drive her to her physical therapy appointments, and she learned to walk again, pushing through every hurdle that was thrown in her way. Clarke was always surprised by Raven's ability to persevere, but this was something else altogether. It only served to make Clarke even more in awe of Raven's boundless strength.

She can walk without assistance now, just the brace, but it's still a rather ungainly limp. She's still in therapy, but she's never lost that essence of herself; her sarcasm, her humor, her wit. She never stopped being Raven throughout the entire ordeal, and Clarke once again envies that strength. She wonders what that's like, being able to retain yourself through a trauma like that. (She wishes she had been stronger, like Raven; maybe then she wouldn't feel like a part of her was missing, like she wasn't the same anymore).

Bellamy ducks quickly into the bathroom for her brace while Raven shimmies into the pants she has dangling in her hands.

"What's for breakfast, ladies?" She says, shit-eating grin plastered on her face as she hobbles to the table, towel slipping down off her shoulders slightly as she takes her brace from Bellamy and starts strapping it on over her leg.

"Jesus Christ," Octavia says through a mouthful of Egg McMuffin, "Put some fucking clothes on."

"Oh please," Raven says back, flipping her wet mane of hair over her shoulder in a dramatic arc, her towel dropping purposefully to reveal a hint of cleavage, "This body is a gift. Don't pretend you don't like seeing it." Clarke rolls her eyes as she twirls the tray of coffee cups, plucking the one that has her name scribbled on it out from the far end.

"Uh, yeah, maybe Bell," Octavia snorts in return, gesturing at her brother's rapidly heating face as he looks physically anywhere but at Raven. Clarke thinks it's hilarious. He only does things like that (gets bashful, overly respectful, etc. etc.) when he likes someone. With anyone else, he doesn't care, and Bellamy definitely has a mile long list of ladies he's had the pleasure of sleeping with, and an equally long list of girls who want a chance to sleep with him, so modesty isn't really his strong suit, "and Clarke's queer ass. But not me. Don't flatter yourself, Reyes."

"Hey!" Clarke says indignantly at the jab, shaking her head as Raven stands, only to practically shove her chest into Octavia's face.

"Gross!" Octavia yells, propelling herself backwards into the wall and off of her chair as Clarke and Bellamy share a look before doubling over with laughter.

"Where would you people be without me?" Raven hums, shit-eating grin still plastered on her face. She looks beyond pleased with herself and Clarke can't help but laugh harder as Raven exits the kitchen with a dramatic bow.

"A lot less traumatized!" Octavia yells after her in response, making a gagging sound as she takes a big sip of her coffee, pulling herself up off the floor. Bellamy snickers into his palm, which only serves to earn him a death glare from his sister.

"Sorry, O," he says, but Clarke can tell he's struggling not to laugh again.

This is why Clarke loves her friends. She may have barely slept last night, she may be having a shitty morning, she may have to walk through her impending long day in a sleep deprived haze, but their ability to make her see the good in the moment, the joy, to forget about all the other shitty things hovering in her subconscious, and to experience it through their never ending banter…Clarke is grateful for every day she spends surrounded by these people and their infectious good nature.

"Eat your breakfast and shut up Bellamy," Octavia growls, pout setting onto her lips as she shovels more food into her mouth.

Bellamy laughs out loud again. Clarke still loves that sound.

"You need a ride today, Clarke?" He asks, pulling the McDonald's bag towards him and rifling through it for his food, grinning victoriously before he pushes the bag back towards Clarke.

"If you don't mind?" Clarke says sheepishly, turning towards her own food. Raven's fixing her car, which happened to decide to sputter its last breath a few weeks earlier (right in the middle of a busy road), and according to the mechanic, parts for a car as "fucking ancient" as hers is are hard to come by. Clarke doesn't have the money at the moment to go hunting for a new one, so she'll let Raven insult her car and wait while she works on it instead, just because it's cheaper. She's been getting poor Bellamy to drop her off and pick her up at the hospital ever since, and she feels bad for making him go extra trips and being just a downright inconvenience when he already does so much for her. He insists he doesn't mind, and that it isn't making him late for work, but she thinks he just doesn't want to admit that she's causing him strain. She loves him all the more for that, but it only makes her feel guiltier.

"Yeah, it's no trouble," he smiles, shoving a stray piece of bacon into his mouth, "I can't pick you up though, Captain needs me to work late on the other side of town."

"It's fine," Clarke says, and she actually feels relief at the fact that he can let himself off the hook for one night, "I'll take the subway and then walk the rest of the way." Bellamy puts down his sandwich, dark eyes looking seriously into hers.

"Clarke," he starts, before Octavia interrupts him.

"Uh, oh, you're about to get the Big Brother Talk," she says, eyebrows wiggling, "That's his scolding voice."

"Shut up, O," he says, a bit of a bite to his words before he sighs, "I'm just looking out for you. Both of you." Octavia senses the tinge of fear in his voice; her features soften, a forlorn look replacing her teasing.

"I know, Bell." They both look like they might cry now, their gazes telling Clarke endless tales of darkness and sorrow.

Her heart breaks for them.

Bellamy clears his throat, tearing his eyes away from his sister and focusing back on Clarke.

"Like I was saying," he continues, and Clarke detects a slight waver in his solid, deep voice; sees Octavia wipe subtly at her eyelids, "it'll be late. You need to be careful. You'll be walking alone and you have to make sure you're aware of your surroundings, okay? Promise me."

"I promise, Bellamy. I'll be careful."

"Good," he says, brushing some of his hair out of his eyes as he leans back into the counter. Clarke shifts on her stool as Raven re-enters the kitchen, fully dressed and pulling her still damp hair back into her trademark ponytail.

"Jeez, I'm gone for like two seconds and this place suddenly turns into angst-ville," she scoffs, noting everyone's somber expressions, a stark difference from the laughter filled ones she left only moments before.

"Shut the fuck up," Octavia spits out, and just like that, they're back to laughing.

Clarke is content now to sit back and watch her friends while they eat and talk. She loves talking, and especially with them, but sometimes she just prefers to observe. It lets her mind slow down a little, gives her some time to relax and clear her thoughts. It's a nice reprieve that she needs every once and a while, especially this early in the morning and with such a long day ahead of her. She catches Bellamy's eye, and they share a smile. He likes to do that too. She thinks he might even be doing it with her, right now; Octavia and Raven's constant back and forth more than enough to make up for their absence in the conversation. He reaches down underneath the counter to take her hand, and all of a sudden a wave of sadness and despair fills her whole being, and she can feel the weight of it pressing into her chest, against her ribcage. It's suddenly hard to breathe, and she feels like she's drowning in the immediacy of it. She's not entirely sure if Bellamy taking her hand was the trigger, or if it had always been there since she woke up, and he just knew that she was going to feel it eventually so he reached out to let her know he was there (maybe a little of both). Either way, she clutches back, threading their fingers together and squeezing. He shoots her a half-smile, and Clarke is glad he's here. She wants to cry, wants to break down, but she feels his strength beside her, his long fingers winding around her own, and she shares in the comfort he never fails to provide. He knows her a little too well, but it's times like these that she's glad he can read her like a book.

Raven's shouting about something no doubt ridiculous, but it's enough to ground Clarke in the present. She squeezes Bellamy's hand one more time before she lets go, and the despair slowly trickles from the forefront of her thoughts. She has no desire to get caught up in the past, in things that can't be changed, not right now, so she forces herself back into the conversation bubbling around her.

"Tell her she's insane, Clarke," Octavia says, rolling her eyes for dramatic effect as Raven shakes her head, muttering what sounds like 'ay dios mio' or some other form of that under her breath as she sneaks a bite from Bellamy's sandwich.

"You're insane," Clarke agrees, smiling over at Raven, even though she has absolutely no idea what she's agreeing to. Knowing Octavia and Raven, it truly could be anything.

"Let it be known that you can suck my ass," Raven says in return as Octavia bursts out laughing.

"That's a horrifying image," Bellamy scrunches up his nose in disgust.

"See?" Octavia howls, "I told you we would all be a lot less traumatized if you didn't live here with us."

"You wouldn't last one day without me, Blake, and you know it," Raven scoffs, and Clarke laughs because it's true.

Octavia's phone rings at its usual seven ten promptness, signaling the arrival of her boyfriend to drive her to work.

"That's my cue," she says, pocketing her cell as she downs the rest of her coffee, kissing her brother on the cheek before grabbing her bag from the rack by the door and slipping into her shoes.

"Tell Lincoln I'm still on for next Saturday. Make sure he hasn't forgotten," Clarke calls after her. The two of them have plans to go to a new art museum opening up out of town, just to get away from everyone else and their hectic lives and immerse themselves in art for a while. They're both artists, and Clarke loves going places with Lincoln only for them to sit silently with their sketchpads in hand, drawing next to each other. It's therapeutic, and Clarke's glad she has someone in her life who appreciates art like she does, who understands its power to heal and renew. Lincoln gets it, and she never has to try to explain it. It's only one of the many things that makes Lincoln such an incredible guy.

Octavia rolls her eyes as she pulls on her coat, stuffing her keys into the pocket.

"Lincoln probably has it marked on a calendar, but I'll let him know anyway."

"Thanks." Octavia blows Raven a kiss before slamming the door shut.

"Now that she's gone…" Raven wiggles her eyebrows suggestively at both Bellamy and Clarke.

Bellamy's face reddens for what seems like the umpteenth time this morning alone. Clarke gags.

"I'm flattered, Raven, honestly," Clarke chuckles as she takes another bite of her sandwich, "but neither of you are really my type."

"Spoil my fun why don't you," Raven pouts, plopping herself down unceremoniously in Octavia's now vacant chair. Bellamy grins.

"Sorry babe."

The next twenty minutes pass in relative silence, a hush spreading over them; Raven absorbed in something on her phone while Clarke and Bellamy pick at the remainder of their breakfasts.

"Well," Raven finally says, drawing out the 'l' as she stands up, gripping the edge of the counter for support, "It's been real nice chatting with you both, but I've got places to be. I'll see you later." Raven leans over the counter, pressing a sloppy kiss to Clarke's cheek (which Clarke wipes off, sticking her tongue out at her best friend while she does it) and saluting Bellamy, ruffling his hair before grabbing her backpack from where it leans against the fridge.

"Give me an update on my car today?" Clarke asks. She still feels bad for putting Bellamy out nearly every day.

"Sure," Raven nods in return, "but don't expect any miracles. I've got Wick out looking for shit but it's slow going, Griffin."

"Thanks though, for fixing it. Or trying to," Clarke grins sheepishly.

"Anything for you, babe," Raven says, twiddling with a strap on her brace as she swings the front door wide, closing it behind her in yet another dramatic flourish.

"What _would_ we do without her?" Bellamy chuckles, shaking his head as he shifts his stance into a more comfortable one. He still hasn't sat down, and Clarke would worry that he was uncomfortable if that wasn't such a Bellamy thing to do. He always stands. Everywhere they go. Sometimes it gets annoying, especially at restaurants (Clarke remembers with a barely contained giggle when Jasper and Monty practically dragged him into a booth once; Jasper threatening to tackle him if he didn't sit and Monty pushing him into the table from behind) but Clarke's come to accept it as just another quirk. When she first met him, she thought it was weird that he didn't sit down when they hung out, or when they went out somewhere, but she always felt awkward asking him about it, mainly because she didn't want to embarrass him or come off as rude. She asked Octavia instead, which only launched her into a tirade about how he was born standing up and probably hasn't sat since. (That's probably when Clarke decided she really liked Bellamy).

"That's a good question," she replies, downing the last of her coffee (and knowing she's going to need at least three more cups if she's going to make it even halfway through this day) and beginning to gather up the garbage littering the counter.

"You want some help?" He asks, jumping forward to grab some of the junk on the table, reaching out to hand it over to her.

"Thanks," she nods in return, shooting him a grateful smile.

He leans against the wall as she finishes throwing the rest of the wrappers and cups out.

"When do you need to be in?"

"Nine." Clarke stretches, exhaustion already setting in. All she wants to do is hide in her office all day (and maybe catch up on a little sleep while she's at it).

"I'm gonna take a shower," she says, "Hopefully it'll wake me up." Bellamy grins.

"I'll watch some TV while I wait for you then."

"Thank you, Bell, really. For everything." She means so much more than just today, or even just the last few weeks. She means so much more than that, but she can feel the sadness beginning to weigh her down again, and she doesn't want to think about any of it. She hates remembering. She hates that she can't seem to shake the despair, the pain, the haunting feeling of grief that hangs on her shoulders and swirls in her blood. She turns before he can see that she's made herself upset, and she walks into the bathroom quickly, shutting the door and turning on the water before a stray tear manages to slip out.

She wipes it away viciously, and strips out of her pajamas with haste, hissing as the water scalds over her skin.

At least here, with the sound of water cascading over her body, the press of droplets against her skin, the mat squelching underneath her toes, she can concentrate on something else; on something that is not the emotions swirling around inside of her, the overwhelming feeling that things are _not_ okay. At least here she can pretend she does not extend beyond this body, beyond this shower, beyond this room. She can ground herself here.

Clarke loses track of time. It's Bellamy knocking on the door and calling out the time to her that finally gets her to shut off the water and dry off.

She feels better. Stronger. Her skin is wrinkled and pruned, but she feels better. More herself again.

The sadness ebbs and flows. Some days are better than others. But she'll pull through. She has to. She doesn't have any other choice.

She tugs clothes on in her room, discarding the towel by her laundry basket (which happens to be overflowing, and Clarke makes a mental note that she really needs to do that sometime in the next few days) and unplugging her phone, sliding it into her pocket as she ignores the ache she feels over her mother's latest disappointment.

Bellamy has his feet up on the couch the next time she hurries into the bathroom, head cocked and eyes fixed intently on the television. She wonders what he's watching but doesn't really have time to think about it, plugging in her hair dryer and running her fingers through damp strings of blonde hair.

She's finally ready about ten minutes later, and she shouts at Bellamy that she's good to go, grabbing her briefcase and her purse from her room, shutting the lights off before joining Bellamy in the kitchen.

"Got your keys?" He asks, opening the front door, gesturing for her to exit.

She jingles them in front of his face in response. He chuckles, closing the door swiftly behind him.

"Then we are a go," he jokes, pushing her towards the elevator at the end of the hallway.

It's almost warm out today, and Clarke takes in a much needed gulp of fresh, mid-morning air, listening briefly to the sounds of traffic and congestion ringing all around her before climbing into the passenger seat of Bellamy's car.

"Anything exciting on the agenda today?" Bellamy comments, clicking his tongue as he turns a corner, honking at a blue SUV that swerves in its attempt to cut him off.

Clarke shakes her head, "Nope. Kind of glad about it too. Yesterday was long; I kind of need a break."

Bellamy grins, glancing over at her quickly before re-focusing his eyes on the road in front of him, "Yeah, you certainly do. Dr. Clarke Griffin: always trying to save the world."

She laughs along with him, resting her head against the head restraint behind her, taking a moment to look at the people they're passing by.

Clarke loves to people watch. It's fun to make up stories about the lives of strangers, imagine conversations they're having on their phones, what kind of lives they lead. It's a distraction from her own problems, sure, but Clarke finds comfort that there are thousands of people out there, in her city, who have lives and worries and issues too; it makes her feel less alone.

(It's also one of the most entertaining things she can think of, when she gets the entire gang together and they go to the mall or to that giant Macy's in midtown or even to a restaurant; everyone has their own flair for coming up with stories about people, uniquely their own. Bellamy and Lincoln are predictably horrible at it, and Octavia and Raven are predictably good at it; Jasper and Monty fall somewhere in the middle, but Clarke likes hearing Monty's take on people in particular. He's not as dull as Bellamy and not as dramatic as Raven, but he's more real, and that's one of the things about Monty that she finds herself relating to more and more).

"Where'd you go?" Bellamy asks softly as they stop at a red light.

Clarke watches a man in a bright suit trip over the curb as he crosses the street.

"Just thinking," she replies.

"Are you okay?" He asks seriously.

"Yeah." Clarke realizes how lame that sounds only after it's already out there and she can't take it back.

"Not all that convincing," Bellamy smirks in return, foot pressing into the accelerator as the light changes swiftly to green. She sighs.

"Just my mom," she concedes, and it's nice to get that out there. She hadn't realized how much she needed to tell someone about it.

Bellamy shakes his head, making a sharp left, "She not coming this weekend?" Clarke nods.

"Typical. Don't let it get you down. I tell you what," he continues, reaching one hand up off the steering wheel to brush some of his dark hair out of his eyes, "after the presentation, I'm taking you out to dinner; a celebration for all your hard work. It's on me."

"Bell, you don't have to do that," she says, and now she feels even worse. Now he's going to spend money on her just because her mom decided to flake again. She knows he isn't exactly making big bucks on a cop's salary, and he has other more important things to worry about than treating her to dinner. She also hates the idea that he's doing this just to make her feel better. She doesn't need his pity.

"Ah," he waves a hand in her general direction, "I want to. You can't say no, so." He grins cheekily at her, his freckles standing out sharply on the curve of his cheekbones.

"Fine." She gives in, mostly because once Bellamy sets his mind to something, there's not a lot you can do to change it. Octavia's exactly the same way, so Clarke knows better than to argue with a Blake that's decided something's going to happen.

"Good," he says, and he looks just a little too pleased with himself that Clarke wants to whack him in the back of his head. She refrains, but only because he's driving.

He pulls up to the curb right near the pathway to the hospital, just like he always does.

"Thanks, Bellamy," she says, kissing his cheek as she opens the door.

"You'll be careful, tonight, won't you?" He calls out, just as she's about to shut the door.

"Of course," she rolls her eyes, "Now go worry someplace else," she huffs, slamming the door closed, returning his wave quickly before trekking up into the hospital.

"Morning Dr. Griffin," Maya says as she walks towards the front desk, "Nice day, huh?" Clarke smiles. Maya's a great nurse; dedicated and sweet. Patients love her, and so do the doctors. She's one of the most easygoing people Clarke's ever met, and easily one of the nicest. (She's a nice change of pace from some of the other people that work in this building). There's just something about her that makes you like her, and Clarke's glad she works here. The world needs more people like Maya.

"It is," she agrees, taking some paperwork Mackenzie (the other nurse on duty with Maya at the moment) thrusts at her, "And how many times have we been over this: call me Clarke." Maya blushes.

"Right. Clarke. Sorry." Clarke grins back, before she heads for the staircase, taking the stairs down to the locker rooms nestled in the basement.

She's in her lab coat in a few minutes, discarding her jacket and some other things she doesn't need for the rest of the day before locking up, nodding at Dr. King who holds the door open for her. Clarke swings by the cafeteria before heading down to her office, briefcase still in hand as she pays for an extra large cup of coffee. (The food here is less than stellar; the coffee even worse, but Clarke needs caffeine, and she'll deal with crappy hospital coffee because she might die without it).

Clarke has to stop and talk to five doctors before she finally makes it to her office and she finally feels like she can breathe, shutting the door gently behind her as she tosses her briefcase onto the chair near her desk, setting the coffee cup down next to the picture of her and her friends at Cancun: the spring break destination of sophomore year. Clarke sits, relieved, and she shakes her head. She wonders how Bellamy does it, standing all the time.

She sighs, pulling out the paperwork she'd just gotten from Mackenzie, adding it to the ever growing stack on the right hand corner of her desk, vowing to get to it sometime in the next two days.

She sighs, running her hands through her hair as she turns towards the window to her right, still open because she'd forgotten to close it the night before. (She has a bad habit of doing that). There's a slight breeze flitting in through the blinds, and Clarke is glad for it. Her office always gets unnecessarily stuffy.

She glances down at the carpet below her, where there are still faint imprints of bloodstains etched into the material; no matter how hard Clarke scrubbed she couldn't quite get it all out. Blood was stubborn that way.

Clarke's still not completely convinced that that night had even happened; sometimes she thinks she made it all up, or that it was some elaborate dream she had begun to believe as fact. She can't believe that she'd stood near, even _touched_ , the vigilante that had been protecting (or terrorizing, depending on who you spoke to) the city for years. She can't believe that that vigilante had been dripping blood on her carpet only a mere few weeks earlier.

(If she's honest with herself, she likes that she can't get all the blood out; it's a visual reminder of that meeting, that night, of the woman behind the mask: the fact that she _is_ human, despite some of the unbelievable things that she does).

Clarke still remembers when the vigilante had first surfaced; the commotion that rippled throughout the city and through every person living in it because of it. There was fear, anger, hatred, relief: any emotion named Clarke had encountered, seen, or heard about someone who felt it. The media had a field day. (Still does).

Everything changed the moment he appeared: suddenly groups Clarke had always seen as fearless, or just too stupid to be afraid of anything, were scared, corruption unseen by almost anyone was being exposed, violence reigned. The vigilante painted a terrifying portrait of himself in a flurry of fists and knives.

The one thing that stuck out to Clarke as an anomaly was the fact that he never killed anyone. He maimed, and beat, twisted and amputated, but he never killed. He never took anyone's life; even people Clarke thought deserved it. It interested her, why someone who had decided to take justice outside the law, that would do all these horrible things to people, that had people ready and willing to kill him, wouldn't kill himself. It seemed a paradox of sorts, someone who believed themselves above the law, out there hurting people in the name of something 'altruistic', yet still wouldn't cross that line.

Everyone thought the vigilante was a he, (that's why Clarke still thinks 'he' about the beginning even though she knows better now) until it wasn't, and for whatever reason the revelation that the vigilante-this skilled, vicious, blood hungry individual-was a woman, only served to make Clarke even more intrigued. She wondered about her motives, what had made her feel she needed to do this, what caused her to risk her life every night trying to clean up the city.

Clarke believed in her, even from the beginning, despite things that could probably sway a person with more conviction than her to the other side. She's not sure why she does, before a few weeks ago she'd never even met her, or seen her in the flesh; just blurry pictures in magazines and newspapers, shaky videos on the local news, and word of mouth. She does, though, even after she broke her no killing rule for no discernible reason and slaughtered everyone affiliated with one of the most powerful women in the city at the time, (who the media dubbed the Ice Queen for both her ruthlessness and her lucrative ice business that was a lot more than simply shipping and selling ice), and even a _lot_ of innocent people, leaving a trail of bloodshed and broken bodies, more than enough to send a chill down the collective spine of the city.

(The way she killed those people, it was horrible. It seemed almost like she'd ripped them limb from limb, and the crime scene photos she'd snuck a peek at while visiting Bellamy down at the station were grisly beyond even her wildest imagination).

She hasn't stopped killing since; she does it when she needs to, and she eliminates the people who she believes deserve it. She plays judge, jury, and executioner now, much to the displeasure of the police and the government. Clarke doesn't equate her with her body count, though, not like the media does, not like the police do, not like a large majority of people do. She's not sure why, again. The thought alone of all that killing should put her off, but for some reason Clarke believes there's so much more to the vigilante than meets the eye.

The media gave the vigilante a name, too: the Commander. (Clarke thinks it suits her well).

There's also a police task force charged with bringing her to proper justice. There's less fervor surrounding it now than there used to be, although it's still an active presence. The cops don't like her at all (and that's putting it mildly), and Bellamy hates her. Clarke tends to keep her opinions about the Commander to herself when she's around him. She's not sure how her other friends feel, except Jasper, who is wary of her, but believes in her too. She at least has an ally in him. (Clarke's always been a little jealous that he met her; he helped her design her costume and he wouldn't shut up about it and her for months afterwards).

Finally being face to face with the Commander was not how she pictured it would be. If anything she imagined meeting the Commander as a result of some harrowing moment where she would get to witness her in all her heroic glory. It was a shock to see her broken and bleeding, wincing and limping in pain. (At the time, she had been a mixture of shell shocked and star struck, and she doesn't think she made a very good impression).

She wasn't exactly what she'd imagined her to be. She was taller than Clarke herself, but not as tall as she'd thought she'd be, and there was something about her that just made her seem _small_. But she was simultaneously more than Clarke had imagined too. There was a regal air around her, proud and vengeful, and Clarke could feel power practically surging off of her in waves. It makes sense, why people are so afraid of her. She radiates with energy, and not to mention the mask. It covers most of her face, leaving only the tip of her nose, lips, and chin exposed, and the red design around her eyes looks almost like smeared blood, dripping down her cheeks and caked around her eyelids. It's terrifying. (Yet Clarke wasn't afraid).

Clarke still doesn't know anything about her.

She doesn't know what she looks like; what color her hair is, what her eyes are like (she imagines them dark and intense, glinting with the same kind of dangerous energy she radiates but tinted with compassion for the city she fights for, weary with all that she has endured); she only knows that her lips are full and pink and that they clench together all the time, like she's constantly holding something back, swallowing down emotion, reminding herself not to say anything, not to reveal anything. She only knows that she has an athletic build; strong shoulders and biceps, and toned, defined, abs that Clarke couldn't keep her eyes off of (she hopes she wasn't too transparent in her staring, but they were _really_ nice abs) and pants that hung low on her hips, framing a tight stomach and strong thighs; that muscles rippled with movement. That her skin was warm and rough to the touch, her knuckles torn and bloody underneath fingerless gloves; that there were scars of varying length and severity littering her body, and that Clarke wants to know the stories behind each and every one of them (it scares her, so much, that she wants to know all these things. She doesn't understand why she does). That she had various holsters hanging from her belt, knives in each one. That she has a tattoo on her bicep, and the artist in Clarke wants to study it, trace over every intricate detail and commit it to memory.

She doesn't know anything about her. But God, does she want to.

The fascination is strange, and intense. It would be embarrassing if anyone saw her sketchbook; in the weeks since she met the Commander, the thick pages have been filled with furious sketches and even more detailed drawings of the vigilante, all from what she can remember from that night. She can feel her fingers itching now, to put to paper the strong curve of the Commander's jaw, the tattoo swirling over the muscle in her bicep, the straightness of her posture, the fullness of her lips, even though she's already done it a thousand times.

She wants to see her again.

She knows she more than likely never will again, but there's something that pulls her towards the Commander, something about her that makes her want to talk to her, to spend more time with her that doesn't involve patching her up. She's been trying to run into her again; taking walks around the blocks by the hospital when she needs a break during late night shifts in the hopes that she might stumble upon her. So far, no luck, and she's beginning to feel foolish. The city is huge, and the notion that she might actually find her again near the hospital when she's busy hunting down crime everywhere else is more than ridiculous. She's just about given up hope that they'll ever meet again.

Clarke sighs.

She has work to do, and daydreaming about the Commander isn't going to get any of it done. She adjusts herself in her chair and takes a long sip from her cooling coffee before pulling papers towards her, clicking her pen open.

It's going to be a long day.

* * *

Clarke's not sure how she survived the day, but she did. It was a little more hectic than she'd imagined it would be: she was called in for a consultation, had to help perform an emergency surgery when the scheduled surgeon didn't show (turns out he was arrested) and had one of her patients come in unexpectedly to talk to her for what felt like hours. She managed to sneak in a nap in the afternoon, but it didn't help as much as she'd hoped it would. Clarke is so tired she considers getting another cup of coffee before heading out but decides against it. She really just wants to sleep.

It's late, and the air has cooled considerably from its earlier semi-warmth, a wind blowing Clarke's hair into her face as she descends into the subway. She wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep for possibly three entire days. She hasn't been this tired in a while. She blames Raven and Octavia.

She rides the subway in relative silence, ignoring most of the other people sitting around her and glancing warily at a group of people huddled in the corner of the car, talking in hushed, rushed tones.

Clarke has at least six more blocks to walk to get to her apartment building, but at least the air feels nice after being stuck in the subway. She's so exhausted she thinks she might be able to fall asleep standing up, even while she's walking, maybe.

Clarke's rubbing her fingers against her bleary eyes and stepping out into the paved road to cross the street when it happens.

She's always thought the whole 'life flashing before your eyes' thing to be nothing but a tired cliché, but the moment she hears the car horn blaring, turns to find headlights blinding her vision…time seems to slow, and she thinks about all the things that are important to her, in a flash of colors behind her eyes, so quick she almost misses it. There's a swish of air, the skidding of tires, and Clarke braces for impact.

And then

A solid force, colliding into her back so hard it knocks the air straight from her lungs; suddenly she's being lifted off the ground, and she manages to find enough oxygen inside of her to scream, watching the car ram half speed through the intersection where she'd been standing mere seconds before as her altitude increases, the top of the nearest building coming steadily into view as wind whips through her hair, against her eyes, inhaled through her nose and mouth.

She realizes now that there is an arm wrapped securely around her waist, can feel fingertips splayed out, pressing against the curve of her hip, and the form behind her feels distinctly human. Clarke can barely hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears, the erratic pounding of her heart.

Feet slam down onto the rooftop she'd noticed briefly before, the impact jarring all the way up to her skull, and now there are two arms around her, holding her even closer as they spin to the side with excess momentum.

Clarke feels lips near the shell of her ear, and her head is still ringing with a combination of fear and adrenaline.

"Careful, Doc," a deep voice husks, arms unwinding themselves from around her hips.

Clarke lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Her heart pounds.

"Commander," she wheezes, turning on her heel to find the vigilante that's been a constant presence on her mind lately standing a few steps behind her, a frustrating half smile adorning her lips, grappling hook hanging from her fist, the rest of her body silhouetted by the moon up above, her black clothing blending her into the darkness around her.

"Gotta watch your step," she says, an almost teasing tone to her voice. Clarke can't breathe, and her heart is still going a mile a minute, and she's not sure if it's because of the near accident or because of the Commander, looking so cavalier in front of her, or a combination of both.

Clarke's at a loss for words, and all she can do is stare dumbly forward at the person who'd saved her, mouth hanging (no doubt unattractively) wide open. She's having more than a little trouble processing the whole situation, which is ironic, considering she's been wishing for this meeting for weeks, running through scenarios over and over in her brain of exactly how they would stumble into each other, what she would say to her, how they would interact. Now that it's actually happening…she doesn't know what to do, think, say, how to react. She imagined herself being much more put together than this.

The vigilante looks good, though, standing tall and straight, feet planted sturdily apart as she gazes at Clarke, head cocked ever so slightly to the right. She is a far cry from the bleeding, stumbling person Clarke had encountered a few weeks ago.

The Commander's lips quirk upwards in a barely there smile.

"I'll see you around, Clarke Griffin," she says, and Clarke finds she really likes the way her tongue almost trips over the 'k' in her first name, the way she draws out the syllables.

Before she can even utter a coherent sentence, the vigilante takes off in a run, diving over the far side of the building before Clarke can even think stop her.

Clarke stares after her, entranced.

"Who _are_ you?" She whispers into the night, and she finds herself impossibly more intrigued than she'd been even an hour, a day, a week, before. She hopes the vigilante meant what she'd said and that she'd seek her out, hopes that they'll see each other again.

She has to, now. Has to see the Commander again, because she didn't even get to tell her how grateful she was for saving her. She didn't even get to say thank you.

There's a strange feeling swirling in her chest, and her heart is still pounding, her stomach flipping over itself, and there's a stupid silly smile stretching its way across her cheeks.

She feels exhilarated, like she could take on the world.

But for now, she just has to figure out how to get off this rooftop.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

Lexa shifts.

Blinks.

Cracks her neck.

They're late, and her already sour attitude is slowly morphing into one of downright annoyance.

Her informant (more accurately the squirrely young man she'd savagely beaten until he told her the information she'd been seeking) had told her that some of Wallace's lower tier compatriots would be meeting out here by the docks for a drop precisely fifteen minutes ago. Lexa kept herself sharp, eyes and ears tuned to the swell of waves to her left, the faint sounds of cars and congestion in the city to her right, sweeping the darkness in front of her for any sounds of approaching individuals, but so far no dice. Lexa thought the whole situation was odd, because Wallace may not be involved directly in this little transaction, but people working for him were, and she was sure they knew how much he hated when things did not go exactly as according to plan.

That was one thing that Lexa found she had in common with the man she was hunting, much to her displeasure. Lexa has a strict habit of being extremely punctual. It makes her feel sweaty and anxious when people are late, or especially when she herself might be late for something, so she always makes sure that she leaves enough time to account for traffic or any other kind of unforeseen holdup that might occur whenever she's expected somewhere. Her mother had been a lot like that too, and maybe that's where Lexa gets it from. Or maybe it's just a product of circumstance, a result of all the torturous things she's had to deal with, the things she's seen, the things she's done, another toll that's been strapped to her shoulders as she fights to keep an iron grip of control over her own life, the life of her city, and the life of the Commander she's shaped herself into.

(Maybe it's only just one of the many manifestations of that control that she clings to like it's the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely).

Lately, there's been a chink in that control. A chink in the armor she keeps up around her at all times, a chink in the fact that she shuts everyone out of her life without a second thought, and she's better off because of it. A _weakness_.

She hates herself for it. Hates herself for thinking about her, hates herself for being intrigued, drawn to the strength and the spirit she found within her, drawn to her kindness and her genuineness. Clarke Griffin seems as of late to be causing her more problems than the ones she'd patched up for her on that night they'd met.

She has not been weak since _her_ and she never intended to be weak again. Not after what it had cost her. She had learned that she needed to be ruthless that day, she had learned that the world was not forgiving, that she had been right in her skepticism that there was any kind of God. She had promised herself she would never drag another innocent person into her life to reap the consequences, to be destroyed. She had promised herself she would never become invested in anyone ever again, not after that. She could more easily think of herself as a weapon, as a method of destruction, if there wasn't anyone around to remind her that she's still a person too, that she's more than that, that there is still a heart that beats in her chest and care that floods through her veins.

And yet, here was Clarke Griffin, a woman she'd only met because she'd needed medical attention, out of pure circumstance, yet someone she subsequently found she couldn't seem to get out of her head.

It was disarming and annoying and upsetting.

There wasn't anything remarkable about Clarke Griffin. So why did her thoughts always seem to drift in that direction? (Blue eyes, the nagging part of her brain supplies for her, blue eyes and soft curls of blonde hair and timid but firm fingers and kindness in her soft smile and her tired eyes and the fact that she _wasn't_ afraid).

The side of her that was drawn to Clarke Griffin eventually won out, briefly. She let herself believe that it did no one any harm to check up on her every once and a while, to make sure she was okay. It was just her being concerned about a fellow citizen, and it didn't have to be anything more than that. It didn't have to hold weight just because Lexa thought Clarke Griffin was intriguing. It didn't have to mean something because then that would mean that she _cared_. And Lexa doesn't care about people.

(She does, of course, care about people, but it's more in the abstract sense than anything else. She cares about people as a collective whole, not as individuals. She cares for her city, and the people who reside in it, but she does not know them by name, she does not sit down for coffee with them, and she does not know any of them in any sort of intimate way. That is what keeps her sane. That is what allows her to do what she does; that degree of separation that allows her to remain aloof).

For a while, she found herself frequenting alleys near the hospital where the doctor works, checking up on her when it was late at night and all the rats crawled out of the woodwork to prey on good people like Clarke Griffin. (The good people were the reason she did any of this; the good people were the reason she donned this mask every evening and twisted arms and fingers and necks and woke up in the morning with bloodstained skin and bruised knuckles. The good people were the ones she protected, and Clarke Griffin was one of those good people. There wasn't any real harm in making sure she was safe; she was just doing her job. No harm, no foul. It didn't mean anything. _It didn't_ ).

She learned Clarke's typical schedule fairly quickly. She liked to watch her, especially when the streetlamps cast a dim light over her and a yellow glow around her already blonde head, almost like a halo; when she'd smile at her nurse friend or the man who picked her up most evenings and it suddenly felt like the world had a little added hue of color in it again, like Lexa could see all the intricate blues and yellows and greens and purples, instead of the usual monochrome blacks and whites and grays.

(There was something about her that was magnetic, and Lexa couldn't help but be drawn to her; an inescapable pull that seemed to defy logic itself).

She spent a little too much time watching over Clarke, if she's completely honest, and as the weeks dragged on and her injuries began to heal more fully, she realized just how much of her time she'd spent following Clarke around, justified only in her mind by her broken state and the ever present duty to protect the people of her city, of which Clarke was one. She'd been neglecting her duties, and she felt an immense amount of shame for focusing so much of her attention on one woman, and allowing criminals to get away with their machinations unharmed, allowing Wallace to perceive her as weak, allowing him to get cocky again. That would not do, not ever.

So she locked up the part of herself that wanted to seek out the doctor, the part of her that wanted to see her and talk to her and _know_ her.

(It's the tiny part of her that's still human, she thinks, but she must remind herself that she is not human: she is a machine, she is a force to be reckoned with; every man's nightmare. She is a ruthless enforcer of justice with iron skin and eyes of steel and rust coursing through her veins. She is not meant to be anything more than that, because this is the life that she chose for herself and she must accept the consequences, even if they make her nothing more than a shadow illuminated only by the moonlit streetlights underneath a blanket of suffocating darkness. She does not deserve to be human; after all, she can't afford it, and especially not after all that she's done. She shed her privilege to be human the day she took her first life, the moment she took her first life and didn't _stop_ ).

She couldn't afford to be thinking about Clarke Griffin all the time, to want to watch for her safety. That other night was just an anomaly, a flaw in the prescribed code of her day to day existence, ever since she firmly decided to shut Clarke out of her thoughts.

She'd been in the neighborhood, tracking a low life heroin dealer who was seeking to be brought into the Wallace-ian fold, hoping either to take him out before he got there, or to take everyone who showed up to the meet out (she hadn't quite decided yet), including the dealer who was unwittingly leading her right where she wanted to be. She had been about to pull out her grappling hook to follow the guy across the street (so she never had to leave her lofty purchase on the rooftops) when she saw Clarke Griffin, face streaked with sweat and toil, hair tied back in a messy bun, unfocused and tired, walking down the sidewalk. (There was a subway stop a few blocks over, and Lexa assumed that's where she'd come from).

She'd been thrown entirely off guard, because what are the odds she would just stumble across Clarke? She wasn't even looking for her; she'd just been making her usual rounds. (Maybe fate was trying to tell her something). She didn't know how to feel about it, she didn't really want to feel any particular way about it, but despite her best efforts she was almost blown over by the weight of the emotions that hit her like a freight truck, or like that time she'd catapulted into the ocean from the thirtieth floor of a building.

She felt a mixture of anger, annoyance, and to her complete and utter dismay, happiness. She was angry and annoyed that she'd run into the damn doctor, when she'd finally successfully stopped thinking about her all the damn time, when she hadn't watched over her in over a week. She was pissed. She didn't need a reminder of her momentary weakness. But she was still secretly pleased, because there was still something about Clarke that seemed to calm the storm always swirling around inside of her. She didn't mind, really, seeing her. She supposed it was bound to happen eventually, she'd just didn't think it'd be this soon. She'd been just about to continue on her way, following the dealer across the dimly lit street, when her stomach nearly dropped out of her body.

She'd acted out of pure instinct, but the moment when Clarke stepped off the sidewalk to cross to the other side, Lexa saw the car, and something constricted in her chest, squeezing tightly. She was jumping off the rooftop without a second thought about it, shooting her grappling hook at the building directly across from her, and didn't stop to think for a moment that she was breaking her precious rules again: she was interfering, she was concerned, she was saving _Clarke Griffin_ , and maybe most importantly, she was interacting with the only person who had managed to crack her façade in years. Exactly what she told herself under no circumstances to ever _ever_ do again.

But none of that mattered, apparently. She was crashing into Clarke in what seemed like a split second, arm around her hips, hugging her to her body. The car skidded past them, sliding to the side, and Lexa had tucked her body closer to Clarke's, trying not to let the relief overpower her.

They'd landed rather roughly, and Lexa had pulled Clarke closer, twisting her other arm around her waist, absorbing as much of the shock as she could, twisting with the momentum. She was used to this sort of thing, but Clarke certainly wasn't.

She didn't let go right away. Instead, she whispered in her ear. What in the world had possessed her to do that, she really wishes she knew, so she could punch it in the face or something before it decided to speak.

"Careful, Doc," was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and she'd felt an almost immediate panic once she'd realized what she'd done. Now Lexa let go, abruptly, pushing Clarke away from her in a move that was probably a little harsher than necessary, but she'd wanted to make a point to herself. _Space._ The doctor wobbled slightly on unsteady feet, but Lexa didn't move to offer any more support; she'd done too much already. Too much. And now she was just standing there. She should be gone already, and yet she wasn't. She was just waiting. (What is wrong with her)?

That was when Clarke turned to face her; cheeks flushed red and chest heaving. She'd taken her in, blinking harshly, before she'd breathed out her alter-ego's name, wheezing, but somehow it still managed to sound like…something _good_ coming from her lips. _Commander_.

And Lexa had continued to violate her code, for some ridiculous reason like the potential for human connection.

"Gotta watch your step," she said, and she'd even allowed a smile to grace her lips. Clarke had merely gaped, mouth falling open comically, eyes wide and bulging. Her rational side finally kicked in after what seemed like an eon. She had to get the hell out of there before she did anything else she'd come to regret.

"I'll see you around, Clarke Griffin," she'd said, and she still isn't sure if she'd actually meant it. And then she was tumbling off the other side of the rooftop, trying to control her racing heart, setting her sights back on what she was supposed to be doing that night, and away from Clarke Griffin. She hated herself for even considering going to see her again.

She still isn't clear on exactly what it was about Clarke Griffin that sent her careening off track. She's been doing just fine. No one has ever been a problem. Until her. (She hates herself more than she hates Clarke, really. She's the one who acted weak. Clarke didn't know she was smashing against walls that have been sturdy for so incredibly _long_ ). Maybe it's because no one's ever really cared enough about Lexa to try. She appears cold, distant, and aloof, and maybe people just don't want to bother with someone who doesn't seem to show any emotions. But that's exactly what she wants, so she shouldn't be ruminating over her so-called loneliness, because this is what she signed up for. She checked off the little box that declared 'no lasting attachments' the moment she decided this was the life she wanted for herself; a life dedicated to the betterment and the protection of others, at the expense of her own.

Lexa is startled from her thoughts at the sound of approaching tires crunching against gravel. She sits up straighter, suddenly alert. She watches as three cars glide into view, headlights shut off, parking parallel to the docks. There is a murmuring of harsh voices and slamming doors, heads sweeping around to take in the surroundings.

This is Lexa's newest plan to take Wallace down before his organization grows any more than it already has. (She doesn't need a repeat of several years ago).

She's attempting to dismantle the organization from the bottom up, taking out tiers of lesser criminals and working her way, slowly but surely, to the top. To Wallace himself, where he sits perched on his throne of lies in the city council office. She's not sure exactly how far his influence runs, how deep his claws go, and she hopes that it's more superficial than anything, that he isn't entrenched in the city so deeply that she'll be forced to rip it apart to remove the cancer. She loves her city, and it would kill her to have to hurt it in order to save it, even if she was doing the right thing.

She shifts her position again as one of the men begins unloading the trunk of his truck. (Her ribs are still in pretty bad shape, unfortunately and lying on them for hours hasn't done them any good). She crawls across the roof to get a better vantage point, ignoring the stab of pain in her elbow and shifting her hips to push herself slightly upward, cocking her left ear towards the voices below her.

"You sure this is a good idea?" One of the men says to his friend, looking worriedly around himself, "I mean between the Commander and Kilfer sayin' he was gonna rat us out to the cops, this isn't the brightest idea, don't ya think?"

The taller man rolls his eyes. "That damn vigilante ain't nothing we got to worry about. Heard she hurt herself. Moron. And as for Kilfer, he ain't got the balls to go down taking us out. So quit your whining and go get the fucking cash."

Lexa smirks to herself. Criminals are so predictable. But they had been getting off the hook for too long, since her injuries had put her out of commission for a while. But she's back now, a little worse for wear, but she can still kick their asses with one arm tied behind her back, of that she's pretty damn sure. They're just about to make the exchange when she decides it's about time to make her entrance.

She stands to her full height, somersaulting off the top of the roof and into the fray below.

"Sorry, boys," she says as she lands, "Can't let you do that." The man to her left pulls out his handgun, finger poised on the trigger, but she's faster. He gets a knife in his chest before he can even think to fire his weapon.

Then all hell breaks loose.

A bullet whizzes by her head as she ducks, swiveling to the right, her fist ramming into the nose of the guy near one of the cars, closest to her. She catches his body as he falls, swinging him up around to shield her torso as one of the taller men shoot a stream of bullets straight at her. She tosses his corpse to the side, bleeding and broken, tumbling head over heels behind the nearest car, unsheathing one of her swords in the process, snagging a Glock from the front seat of the vehicle as she does so.

She checks the clip; full, loaded, and ready to go. She's not particularly fond of guns, but she does know how to use them, and she'll use them if she has to, but from her perspective, guns tend to do more harm than good, though she supposes that's generally their intent.

She pulls up from her crouch and fires at the three men still shooting at her. She aims for kneecaps and they go down instantly, crying in agony as their legs splay out from their bodies at strange angles as they hit the dirt below them, a spray of red coating the darkness around them. She avoids center mass, even if it would be easier to just eliminate them, if only for the fact that she doesn't particularly like killing people, no matter how good she is at it, how efficient, how much it makes the blood in her ears hum.

The others are still looking for a fight, and if that's what they want, well, she'll give them that. She swings her sword in front of her as the first man charges, and she slices the blade through his knees, letting him slide to the ground.

"C'mon, bitch! Let's go!" One of the other men yells, and she rolls her eyes when he charges, and she cuts into him easily. He screams as he falls, clutching his leg, which has started spurting blood, droplets splattering onto the bottom of Lexa's shoes, across the legs of her pants. She must've hit his femoral artery. Too bad.

She's about to tussle with the remaining five when there's another loud screech of tires from behind them.

"Freeze!" She hears screamed at them, "Drop your weapons! This is the police!"

 _Fuck_.

Three of the men start sprinting as if their lives depended on it, and well they kind of do. The other two throw their hands up in the air as one of the officers approaches them, gun trained on them. There's moaning all around her, but all she can focus on is the sound of footsteps running towards her.

She has to _go_.

So she follows in the lead of the three lowlifes – she starts running.

"Stop!" She hears shouted at her, but she doesn't listen. She tosses her sword back into its sheath on her back, feet kicking up dust as she pushes herself faster, harder, stronger. There's an ache in her ribs, pulsating and pounding, but she can't afford to think about that, not now. Her heart is racing in her ears, and she can feel the feet of the officers pursuing her, can feel them rumbling through the pavement and filling her with dread.

"Stop! You're under arrest!" Someone keeps yelling, and she hopes they realize they're going to have to shoot her to stop her, although realistically she kind of hopes they don't entertain that thought.

Today will _not_ be the day she's caught. No way in hell.

There's a turn up ahead, and Lexa wills her body to get her there. Her lungs are heaving with the effort against her still bruised ribs, her feet pushing and falling against the ground in a brutal rhythm, her boots slapping against concrete, the sounds of cops in the not too distant background, of guns cocking and bullets in the chamber. Lexa feels the stitches still present in her side split open, can feel blood oozing out against the side of her clothes.

Just a few more yards, and hopefully there will be roof access somewhere in the alley, anything to get her to a better vantage point, to get her away from the police.

She ignores the screaming of her wounds, and torpedoes around the corner, coming face to face with a brick wall a mere few feet in front of her.

Shit. Shit. Shit. _Shit._

There's no fire escapes, no dumpsters, just a fucking brick wall and two buildings encasing her from the sides.

She takes a minute to drink it in: the taste of freedom, the smell of salt in the seawater behind her, the slight breeze against her skin. She may never get to see autumn again, to look at the city from the top of the buildings, to watch the sun set in the distance over the heads of the people she's sworn herself to protect. Maybe this has been enough for her. Maybe she can be free, even if it means giving up her freedom. She entertains the thought, fleetingly, that this is the end. That she will put her hands up and the cops will cuff her and reveal her identity and this will all be over. That she will have served her city and be able to put her head down and forget the pain and the damage and the blood on her hands. That she could end this without the inevitable tragedy (well, any more than she's already suffered).

Only for a moment.

The deep timbre of one of the cop's voices jars her from her moment of respite, before she's plunged back into reality.

"On your knees!" He commands.

"Hands in the air!" A woman yells.

She complies with both, throwing her hands up into the air, slowly lowering herself to her knees, chancing a glance over her shoulder. There are four cops: three men and a woman, all in uniform.

One of the men is shaking; she can see the miniscule tremor in his weapon as he tries to hold it steady, pointed at the back of her head. He won't shoot. He's too afraid. She can take him easily, and she calculates what he'd need to be put out of commission: she thinks he'd go down with one punch, right to the jaw. He's not built very well, all lanky limbs and skinny arms, and the sheer fact that Lexa's packed with more muscle than five of him put together is enough to reassure her he'll go down without too much of a fight, if one at all.

The second man won't be as easy, but Lexa doesn't foresee a problem. Whoever cuffs her gets the element of surprise: she'll steal their weapon and kill whoever it is, before turning on scrawny boy or this one. She'll shoot him with the gun. Then she'll take out whoever's still left standing.

Her ribs are burning.

(Maybe she shouldn't be as cocky about this as she is).

"Hands on you head," the woman approaches, and Lexa complies, hearing the clink of metal as handcuffs are drawn. Lexa lets herself exude a sense of defeat; she hangs her head, stills her muscles. Prepares.

She feels the woman's fingers gripping her wrist and Lexa offers no resistance as she maneuvers the cool metal around it. Lexa closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

Time seems to slow. She can hear the steady beating of her own heart; hear the ocean breaking against the docks, the scuffle of feet as the officers move apprehensively in place, the harsh sound of the woman breathing against the back of her neck. Each tiny little detail before she readies herself.

She opens her eyes and catches the woman's hand in her own just as she's about to snap the cuffs closed.

She twists immediately, bringing the woman down howling, snapping the bones in her arm as she does so even from her awkward position, and she brings her now freed hand up to snap the woman's neck in one quick motion. She dies with the sound of her scream still hanging in the air around them.

The dark skinned cop reacts first. He shoots, but she uses the dead officer's body as a shield, much like she'd done only minutes before, reaching into the dead woman's holster to retrieve her weapon as she spins around. She shoots the scrawny cop in the chest as she lets the woman's body fall to the ground, firing at the man to his left and catching him in the temple, blood spurting from the bullet wound in his skull as he drops with a sickening thud. And now it's just them. She aims her gun at the dark skinned cop, who's pointing his weapon at her in much the same fashion.

"Let's take it easy," he says, his voice deep and rumbling, "Nobody else has to get hurt. Just put down the gun."

"You first," she quips back, adrenaline humming in her ears despite the shaky feeling in her limbs. He fixes her with his gaze, dark and penetrating. He's fearless, reckless.

"You know I can't do that. But neither of us has to die here today. You put down the gun, and we both walk out of here, breathing. Put it down, and let me take you in. No more bloodshed." She blinks behind her mask. He seems like a good man. But Lexa doesn't have time to care about that, not right now. Right now, she needs to get out of here, no matter what the cost. She can do more good out here than from behind the bars of a jail cell.

So she makes a move of lowering her weapon. She can see the triumphant gleam in his eye before she snaps the gun back up and into her side, firing off two consecutive shots that shred into his legs. He screams as he goes down, finger squeezing the trigger of his own gun and the bullet takes her by surprise, embedding itself into her shoulder. She winces but takes the pain in check, leaping forward to clamp her foot down onto the hand that's holding his weapon. She stomps until his fingers release, and she kicks it far out of reach before dragging his body up into her arms.

She settles her better arm against his neck, squeezing tightly. He struggles against her iron grip, sputtering for air.

"Just remember," she hisses into his ear, tightening her arms around his neck, watching as his eyes bulge up in terror, the way his hands claw desperately at her forearm, choking on his own tongue.

"I could have killed you." And with that she releases him and he crumples to the concrete below, lungs gasping and hacking as he tries to breathe, hands curled around his chest.

She doesn't stop to take a look at the carnage she's left behind, the lives she's ruined, the damage she's done.

She runs and runs and runs until she can't see straight anymore.

What has she become?

(She doesn't think she knows anymore).

The minute she stops, the minute she relaxes, she feels her chest closing up and tears welling in her eyes. She tries to shut them out. She did what she had to do. (That doesn't mean she has to enjoy it).

She takes a moment to breathe, ripping the mask from her head and bending over on her knees, fighting off the panic snaking its way around her heart. At what point does she go too far? Has she already gone too far? Does any of this _mean_ anything? Is she even making a difference? Or is she just killing people, killing people and taking them away from the people they love, from their lives, is she just ruining the world she's trying to save? She just wants to help; she just wants to bring peace to these streets, to see the sunlight peek from the storm clouds overhead and shine down again on a better world, a better existence. A moment where death and corruption and ruthlessness no longer reign. A moment where Lexa could finally rest her aching bones and put down her cross. A moment where people could _live_.

She sucks in her tears, trying to ignore the shaking of her shoulders, the throbbing of the gunshot wound. She grits her teeth, leaning back against the alley wall before digging her fingers into the blood gushing from her shoulder, feeling for the bullet she knows is still embedded in her. She only lets out a few grunts of pain before the tips of her fingers brush against something metallic, and she wrenches it from her shoulder in one quick fluid motion, before she can even fully register the pain. She tucks the bloodied bullet into the pocket of her pants, breathing heavily as she drops her mask to the concrete below her, slipping down to join it.

She reaches out to wipe her tears. (She only succeeds in smearing dark red blood across her face).

She leans her head against the brick behind her, trying to remember something beyond this. Something beyond the duty she feels to protect the people of her city. Something more than misery.

(She remembers laughing, tiny hands, clutching her slightly bigger ones, dirty blonde hair and an angular adoring face, following her everywhere. She remembers the tickle of her uncle's beard, the smell of leather and metal when she would bury her head in the crook of his shoulder. She remembers the playground in the park, the laughter in her father's eyes, the smile stretching across his face. She remembers her mother, strict but loving, oh so deeply loving, with her apron on, chasing them around the house, brandishing a spoon, giggling. She remembers long brown hair and deep, gentle brown eyes, soft dark skin below Lexa's palms, tracing infinities across breasts and hips and murmured whispers of _forever_ on smiling lips, the echo of promises never kept. She remembers everything).

But even those memories are tainted. There is no innocence in Lexa's life. From an impossibly young age, Lexa's been faced with the horrid realities of life, of survival, of the hatred and anger that swelled in people's hearts. She may remember solace in those memories, but those memories only serve to remind her exactly why she's here. Exactly why she's crouched in a heap in this alleyway, battered and bruised and looking for guidance. She's here to protect people from all that she's seen. She's here to give people a chance to live their lives _happy_.

She closes her eyes. There may be no happiness on the horizon for Lexa Forrest, but she can still bring that happiness to others. She can still fight for something better.

That's why she's here.

She's here to give her life for the benefit of others.

She gets up, standing back up on shaky legs, a newfound determination glinting in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders and the clench of her jaw.

She slides her mask back over her face, securing it in place.

She has work to do.

* * *

Notes: turns out I'm not dead! After nearly a year I present you with this mess. Sorry for the gigantic delay between updates but I've been really busy with school (attempting to maintain a 4.0 GPA is exactly as hard as it sounds) and sometimes just super unmotivated but I'll try to be a little better in the future. Thanks for reading, it means a lot :) come drop by on tumblr (scmeenshaw) and yell at me to write and talk to me about the story!


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